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Research at Oslo University Hospital basis for international drug development initiative between Norway and India

Kjetil Taskén (left) and Ivar Sjaastad
SERCA Pharmaceuticals AS, a company established by Inven2 AS in October, recently entered a co-development agreement with Cadila Pharmaceuticals - an FDA-approved Indian Pharma company with some 6000 employees. SERCA  Pharmaceuticals AS is established based on a drug development and innovation project on ischemia reperfusion injury in myocardial infarction that has been going on in the groups of Professors Kjetil Tasken (formerly NCMM UiO/OUH, now ICR, OUH) and Ivar Sjaastad (IEMF, OUH). The researchers have taken this forward to a drug candidate and have documented effects biochemically, in heart cells, by electrophysiology, on normal rat hearts and in rats with ischemia reperfusion injury where there is a cardioprotective effect.

Genetic overlap between bipolar disorder and intelligence

Olav B. Smeland

A new study from NORMENT - Norwegian Centre for Mental Disorders Research -  shows an overlap in genes involved in mental illness and intelligence. Postdoctoral fellow Olav B. Smeland and colleagues found that risk genes for bipolar disorder were associated with higher intelligence.

The study is published in Molecular Psychiatry, and was covered by the Norwegian newspaper VG+

Oslo meets Paris:Researchers of an EU based Epilepsy Consortium discuss the latest research progress - EU Glia PhD

Kjetil Heuser (left) and Toni Berger

One branch of the Marie-Curie program, called “EU – Glia PhD” is a Europe wide consortium represented by internationally respected neuroscientists, industry and partner organizations.  Within this several million Euros grand program financing PhD students, Oslo is represented via Kjell Heuser and Toni Berger, who have met together with the "EU Glia-PhD" consortium at the College de France to discuss recent progresses of their research.

Nature Biomedical Engineering publication:Study reveals how solid stress from brain tumors causes neuronal loss and neurologic dysfunction

Kyrre E, Emblem
Kyrre Eeg Emblem from the Department of Diagnostic Physics at OUS shares the first-authorship on a paper recently published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, entitled "Solid stress in brain tumours causes neuronal loss and neurological dysfunction and can be reversed by lithium”. Using animal and human cancer data the authors show how solid stress – the physical forces exerted by the solid components of a tumor – impacts the tissue surrounding brain tumors and contributes to resulting neurological dysfunction and neuronal cell death. The authors also show how lithium treatment may protect against the effects of brain tissue compression.  
 

 

The Lancet article with statistical contribution from OUS:Avoiding unnecessary Caesarean sections

Inge C. Olsen
In a trial led by Stine Bernitz and Rebecka Dalbye at Østfold Hospital Trust, OUS statisticians Kathrine Frey Frøslie at the Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Women's Health and Inge Christoffer Olsen at Research Support Services CTU contributed with statistical analyses showing that a newly developed and widely applied guideline for labour progression is not better than a guideline developed almost 70 years ago in preventing unneccesary intrapartum Caesarean sections (ICS). An interesting observation was, however, that the overall frequency of ICS decreased in all the trial centres, indicating that close focus on assessing labour progression is more important than use of the guidelines. 

Nature Communications publication:Single-molecule experiments reveal how DNA repair enzymes look for damages using a combination of helical sliding and jumping

From left: Arash Ahmadi (first authors), Alex D Rowe and Bjørn Dalhus (senior authors)

Researchers at Department for Microbiology, Department for Medical Biochemistry and Department for Newborn Screening have used single-molecule fluorescence microscopy to track single protein molecules as they move along a linear piece of DNA held in place by the use of a laser/optical tweezers. By tracking single protein molecules as they moved along the DNA molecule, the interaction between protein and DNA could be investigated in detail in real-time. This study has been performed by PhD student Arash Ahmadi and co-workers in the group of Bjørn Dalhus at the Department for Microbiology, OUS, and Department for Medical Biochemistry, UiO. The study is part of a collaboration between OUS, UiO, NTNU and the University of Bielefeld, Germany.

Myeloma research funded by national clinical research program KLINBEFORSK

Fredrik Schjesvold

Fredrik Schjesvold, head of the Oslo Myeloma Center at Oslo University Hospital, receives 20 mill NOK from The national programme for clinical therapy research - KLINBEFORSK.
The supported project is entitled "The REMNANT study – Does early treatment of relapse increase survival in myeloma?" 
This is one of four projects coordinated from OUH receiving funding from KLINBEFORSK in 2018. The other three are headed by Michael Bretthauer, Guro Elisabeth Lind and Øyvind Molberg.

Research funding from South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority for 2019

The board of the South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority (Helse Sør-Øst) has distributed financial resources to new research projects for 2019. Of the in total 620 incoming applications 109 new projects were granted support.
A substantial amount of the resources goes to young researchers. Support is given to a number og doctoral and post doctoral stipendiates, as well as to researcher grants and career grants. The latter category is for young outstanding researchers planning to establish an independent research group.

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