The Taskén group aims to understand tumor immune evasion mechanisms, and how we can interfere to boost anti-tumor immunity. We want to define future precision immune oncology strategies.

We proceed with cancer drug sensitivity screening (CDSS) to explore individual drug responsiveness and resistance patterns in patient cancer cells. We aim to develop models to assist individualised clinical decisions in precision cancer medicine (PCM) in oncology and haematology.

We aim to understand intracellular signalling networks, the anchoring and localization of signaling complexes through scaffold proteins, how these signalling networks mediate physiological and pathophysiological processes and can be perturbed using drug-like small molecules.

Current projects:

• Tumor immune evasion mechanisms, T cell function in cancer and immune-related diseases
• Identification of regulatory T cell targets that can be perturbed to reverse tumor immune suppression
• CDSS in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and multiple myeloma, understanding drug synergies and predicting effective drug combinations in individual patients
• Functional PCM approaches in solid tumors, hereunder CDSS on pancreatic cancer, breast cancer and ovarian cancer
• IMPRESS-Norway national PCM clinical implementation trial (trial management)
• Acetyl salicylic acid clinical intervention study in metastatic colorectal cancer (ASAC)

Taskén lab 2024.
Back from left: Kaja Solheim, Lauresa Gashi, Marie Trageton, Kjetil Taskén, Elise Solli, Nat Saidu, Nora Bråthen, Mentowa Fürst Bright.
Front from left: Qian Wei, Iselin Lie, Thilde Britu Marås, Sigrid S. Skånland, Yanping Yin.
Not present: Katharina Bischof, Nuria García-Díaz, Mary-Ann Jallad, Youxian Li, Anne-Sofie Forfot Rise, Rafi Ahmad.
Photo by Per Marius Didriksen.