The new Centre of Excellence (CoE) is named the Centre for Embryology and Healthy Development, CRESCO for short. Arne Klungland, Professor and Centre Director, extended a warm welcome to the attendees at the centre's kick-off conference at the Soria Moria Hotel in Oslo in September.
“It's a dream to get started. We have waited a long time for this and look very much forward to starting the various projects,” Klungland said.
Klungland will be CRESCO’s director for the first five years. Associate Professor Lorena Arranz will be the centre director for the next five.
The role of epigenetics in early embryonic development
The biological processes that occur in the earliest stages of life have major consequences for health and development. If something goes wrong, a miscarriage or serious congenital diseases could be the consequences.
The researchers at CRESCO will use advanced technology to study genome stability and the role of epigenetics in the maturation of oocytes and early embryonic development.
One-Health approach for the betterment of society
The new CoE has three main goals.
“First and foremost, we want to identify molecular mechanisms that are important for an embryo to develop healthy,” Klungland said.
“Then, in the long term, we want to establish new methods to ensure higher quality IVF. More than anything, we want excellent test procedures for the quality of IVF embryos”, he added.
IVF stands for in vitro fertilisation and is a medical procedure whereby an egg is fertilized in a test tube.
“Furthermore, our research is within a One-Health approach. We will be able to use discoveries that we make in model organisms for the betterment for both IVF in humans and for livestock, as well as across model organisms”, Klungland said.
First gathering of CRESCO’s nine research groups
The Centre Director pointed out that the official opening at Soria Moria was the first time that all of CRESCO’s nine research groups were gathered.
“This is our first collective gathering, and it's really good to be together and get a sense of how many we are”, he said.
The research groups emerge from the University of Oslo, Oslo University Hospital, the University of Tromsø, Innlandet Hospital Trust, and the University of Copenhagen.
- Dynamic Gene Regulation - Led by Arne Klungland
- Stem Cell Ageing and Cancer - led by Lorena Arranz
- Reproductive Medicine - led by Peter Fedorscàk
- Cell and reproduction biotechnology - led by Elisabeth Kommisrud
- Genome and Epigenome Regulation in Embryo Development, Ageing and Disease - led by John Arne Dahl
- Cellular Responses to DNA Damage - Led by Magnar Bjørås
- DNA-repair - led by Hilde Loge Nilsen
- Biological methylation - led by Pål Falnes
- Bioinformatics - led by Mads Lerdrup
The centre will be located at SINTEF until they move into the University’s new life sciences building that is under construction.
The University of Oslo is a proud host institution of the new CoE
CRESCO is among the few selected new Centers of Excellence that were granted by the Research Council of Norway in the fall of 2022. The Centre is anchored at the Institute of Clinical Medicine and is the institute's fifth CoE.
A proud Head of Institute, Dag Kvale, offered congratulations to Klungland and his collaborators, on behalf of the University of Oslo
“CRESCO's opening seminar is almost symbolic of the Centre's theme – the beginning of life. You have an ambitious, fundamental and interdisciplinary approach to understanding embryonic development and consequences for subsequent development into healthy individuals”, Kvale said.
“On behalf of the University, I congratulate you all today. As a host institution, we will create favourable conditions for your excellent research!”
Centres of Excellence can advance the international research frontier
Benedicte Løseth, the Director of Research Policy and Internationalization at the Research Council of Norway, was also present at Soria Moria to congratulate the researchers at CRESCO.
Løseth, who also has groundbreaking research as part of her portfolio, conveyed how proud the Research Council is of its CoE scheme.
“The Centres of Excellence scheme gives Norway's leading scientific environments the opportunity to organize themselves into outstanding research centres. This way, our researchers can reach particularly ambitious scientific goals and achieve innovative results with the potential to advance the international research frontier,” Løseth said to the attendees.
She further highlighted how CRESCO will use pioneering and brand-new technology in its research.
“The Research Council looks forward to ground-breaking results and new fundamental insights into early fetal health, and mechanisms that reprogram the genetic heritage. Congratulations to the University of Oslo and the Centre for Embryology and Healthy Development”, Løseth said.
Potential complementary expertise from guest lecturers
In addition to greetings and academic contributions from several of CRESCO’s PhD students and postdoctoral fellows, 15 international guest lecturers from Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the USA were invited.
These were both researchers with whom the Centre has an already established research collaboration, as well as potential collaborative partners for CRESCO in the coming years.
“The guest lectures were very interesting and enjoyable. These research environments have surprisingly good complementarity with what we study here”, Klungland summed up.
The Centre Director further said that he looks forward to developing the CRESCO’s collaboration with several of the guest lecturers.
Moreover, Klungland and colleagues had also invited lecturers who presented unique advances in machine learning that can be used to better understand experimental data.
CRESCO means "I grow"
The acronym CRESCO is not an abbreviation for the Centre's full name, but the name still has an important meaning to the researchers.
“CRESCO is Latin and Italian for I grow. In English, we would say "to spring from", and that is kind of what we are aiming for here at this new centre”, Klungland said.
You can find the program for the kick-off at CRESCOs webpage.