Department head: Professor Ragnhild A. Lothe
Deputy department head: Professor Rolf I. Skotheim
Laboratory manager: Professor Guro E. Lind
Department administrative consultant: Ikram Mahnin

The year 2020 at Dept Molecular Oncology
Scientific achievements at Dept Molecular Oncology in 2019

Research groups

Genetics	Genome Biology	Epigenetics

Project groups

Computational Oncology	Cancer Informatics	Statistical Epigenomics

Cell Signalling

As a research department within the OUH Comprehensive Cancer Centre, it is our responsibility and goal to accomplish high quality and interdisciplinary biomedical research for improved precision medicine and management of cancer patients.

About

Our main research programs are devoted to colorectal cancer and prostate cancer, and we have a longstanding project portfolio also on other solid tumor types. Our expertise in biomedical research spans several disciplines from cell biology to translational research, including also active clinical research collaborations, and we have a broad range of advanced technologies established in-lab. The department scientists are inventors of several biomedical patents and active innovation projects.

Lothe lab – genetics, genomics, cell signaling, colorectal cancer, MPNST, tumor heterogeneity, pharmacogenomics, biomarkers

Skotheim lab – genome biology, transcript variation, tumor heterogeneity, prostate cancer, testicular cancer, bioinformatics

Lind lab – epigenetics, genetics, GI-cancers, bladder cancer, early detection, monitoring

Affiliations

All three group leaders are adjunct professors at the University of Oslo and are affiliated with the Institute for Clinical Medicine, the Institute for Biosciences and the Institute for Informatics. We aim to complete at least 3 academic degrees annually, and since the inauguration of the Department in 2006, 59 MSc/PhD degrees have successfully been defended.

The research groups are partners of the Oslo University Hospital strategic research area - Precision colorectal cancer therapy, colorectal cancer COST – actions, The Global Testicular Cancer Consortium, The European network for study on Cholangiocarcinoma, a European multicenter study on MPNST (malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor), The Norwegian Esophageal Cancer Consortium.

External funding sources

Latest News

Anita Sveen (39) – senior researcher and project group leader at Institute for Cancer Research – was on December 16th awarded the prize Researcher-of-the-Year from the leadership at ICR for her outstanding scientific contributions. The award of 100 000 NOK is financed by the Radium Hospital Foundation (Radiumhospitalets legater) and is a personal scholarship for stimulating further excellence in research. 

In June, Tuva Høst Brunsell (MD) digitally defended her PhD “ Heterogeneity of prognostic biomarkers in colorectal liver metastases”, Institute for Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo. The thesis includes three papers (Brunsell et al., Clin Colorectal Cancer 2020; Brunsell et al., Eur J Surg Oncol 2019; Berg*, Brunsell* et al., submitted).

On September the 4th, Christer Anker Andreassen, digitally defended his MSc, Institute of Biosciences, University of Oslo. “The functional and clinical impact of the E3 Ubiquitin ligase NEDD4 in colorectal cancer and its role in regulating PTEN and P53”.

On September the 11th, Mikael Ravndal, defended his MSc, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. "Algorithms for exploring heterogeneity in prostate cancer patients from RNA-seq data".

By examining vulnerabilities in colorectal cancer, Jørgen Smeby, Kushtrim Kryeziu, and colleagues demonstrated the efficacy of PARP inhibitors for a subgroup of colorectal cancer cell lines in a recent paper in EBioMedicine (The Lancet’s open access).

The cancer patient’s own drug sensitivity model: researchers from the Lothe lab and collaborators recently published a paper in Clinical Cancer Research describing ex vivo patient-derived organoids from colorectal liver metastases in a heterogeneity context. 

Drs. Jarle Bruun, Kushtrim Kryeziu and Peter W. Eide (photo) were shared 1st authors , and have established the PDO lineages and drug screen analyses.

The first digital PhD defence at the Institute for Cancer Research was held on the 20th of April 2020.

Dr. Jørgen Smeby defended his thesis "Molecular subtype-dependent impact of driver mutations in colorectal cancer" submitted to the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo.

The work was performed in the Lothe lab at the Institute for Cancer Research. 

She has performed her work in the Lothe lab., and has been a PhD student at the Institute for Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, U of Oslo.

The thesis  “Integrated genomics of colorectal cancer” included three papers of which she is the 1^st author (Molecular Cancer 2017, Oncogene 2019, submitted manuscript).

The candidate held an excellent trial lecture “The gut microbiome as an emerging target for cancer therapy”, and she had a good discussion with her two opponents professors Karin Jirstrøm and Eirik Frengen (photo, candidate to the right).

Dr. Peter Wold Eide, post doc in the Lothe lab received the "Young researcher award" for his scientific accomplishments during the 2019 Onkologisk forum held in Tromsø November 21st-22nd where he presented a lecture entitled "Fra generiske kreftmodeller til klinisk medikamentscreening”.

Professor Guro Elisabeth Lind, head of the Epigentics research group at the Department of Molecular Oncology, has been elected as new leader in "Forskerforbundet" - The Norwegian Association of Researchers, taking over January 1st 2019.

Lind is a former head of "Akademiet for yngre forskere" (The Young Academy of Norway) and has also been a local representative for Forskerforbundet. She will be the first female leader since the 80's, and replaces Petter Aaslestad, who has been in charge of the Research Association for the last six years (two periods).

"I was very much in doubt, first and foremost because I am an active researcher with a research group and exciting projects. But I am also actively engaged in research policy and could not say no to this exciting challenge", Lind says to Khrono.

Researchers Anita Sveen and Ragnhild A. Lothe at the Department of Molecular Oncology describe in collaboration with gastrointestinal oncologist Scott Kopetz at MD Anderson Cancer Centre (US) the complexity of biomarker-driven precision oncology in colorectal cancer.