Christmas came early for the CanCell researchers! It is with great joy we may announce that grants from Norwegian Research council (RCN/NFR) in the call for ground-breaking research (FRIPRO) have been awarded to CanCell scientists: Kay Schink at the Stenmark lab, Jorrit Enserink and Anne Simonsen. NFR awarded NOK 2.65 billion to a total 256 projects out of 2,363 applications.
Read more about the grants and the project below.
Kay Schink granted 11.9 Million NOK.
Kay Schink, a project group leader in Harald Stenmark’s lab has received a grant on 11.9 Million NOK from the Norwegian Research Council. The money is granted to his project “Cellular control of macropinososome formation and maturation”. This is what Kay has to say about his project: Macropinocytosis is part of an endocytotic mechanism that will lead to the formation of large vesicles. These large vesicles are used by macrophages to sample the environment for foreign antigens. Cancer cells use this mechanism to secure themselves a supply of amino acids so that they can fuel their metabolism. We want to understand how this basal cellular mechanism work and identify how cancer and many pathogens use this mechanism.
Anne Simonsen receives a grant of 12 Million NOK
Anne Simonsen at the Simonsen lab received a grant on 12 Million NOK to work with her project “Mechanisms of selective autophagy in neurodegenerative disease”. Anne’s project is focusing on how selective autophagy is related to neurodegenerative disease. In a few words Selective autophagy occurs when damaged organelles are eaten by macrophages and is a mechanism for clearing these damaged organelles.
Jorrit Enserink has been granted 12 Million NOK
Jorrit Enserink which leads the Enserink lab has received a grant of 12 million NOK to work with his project "Kinetics of Activation and Inactivation of Autophagy: Robustness, Noise Suppression and the Role of Metabolic Intermediates". Here is what Jorrit says about his project:
Autophagy is a major survival mechanism that cells utilize in response to nutrient starvation. It is a catabolic process that degrades non-essential cellular components to provide basic nutrients to sustain essential cellular processes. However, uncontrolled autophagy can cause significant harm to the cell, and it is therefore important that we understand how cells precisely regulate this process. In this project we want to understand how cell fine-tune the pathways that feed into the core autophagy machinery. The grant involves three new postdoc positions to help us dissect this process, and I am very excited!"
This is not the only Christmas present this year. In addition Helse Sør-Øst has granted CanCell senior scientist Marina Vietri in Harald Stenmark’s lab a career grant, Kjetil Boye in Jørgen Wesche’s lab a postdoctoral grant and Tor Erik Rusten and his lab a project grant. Read more about these below.
Unravelling the role of nuclear envelope ruptures in tumour development receives grant from Helse Sør-Øst.
Marina Vietri received a career grant from Helse Sør-Øst of with her project “The role of nuclear envelope ruptures in tumour development and cancer treatment”. Vietri and colleagues want to study the effect of ruptures in the nuclear envelope on tumor development.
Helse Sør-Øst supports the project Integrating genomic profiling to improve treatment of soft tissue sarcoma with funds.
Kjetil Boye has received a post-doctoral grant from Helse Sør-Øst of 4,6 MNOK for his project “Integrating genomic profiling to improve treatment of soft tissue sarcoma”. Soft tissue sarcoma is a cancer disease which arises in muscle cells, blood vessels or other supportive tissue you can read more about it here. Using genomic profiling Boye and his colleagues hope to improve the treatments of soft tissue sarcoma.
Uncovering nutrient vulnerabilities to stall tumor growth granted funding by Helse Sør-Øst.
Tor Erik Rusten has received a 10 MNOK grant from Helse Sør-Øst to work on his project “Uncovering Nutrient Vulnerabilities to stall Tumor Growth in vivo”. This is the same project “starving a tumor” which was awarded funding from the Norwegian Cancer Society earlier this year. The project is based on starving out tumors so that they are unable to grow further. You can read more about the project here.
We congratulate all of you talented researchers that received these grants and look forward to follow the results of your research.