Department of Clinical Molecular Biology

EpiGen conducts basic and translational research through its academic faculty. The overarching goal of our research is to advance knowledge of the clinical molecular underpinnings of complex civilization diseases with a focus on healthy aging and improved quality of life for patients.

EpiGen also provides service, infrastructure and support to clinicians at Akershus University Hospital (Ahus) and other researchers at the HelseSørØst region to carry out high-quality translational research.

The research environment at EpiGen is interdisciplinary and consists of researchers, clinicians, study nurses, technicians, PhD fellows and postdoctoral fellows.

Read more about research at EpiGen here (external site).

Projects

Ongoing projects:

• Aging and molecular mechanisms of mitophagy – Principal Investigator, Associate Professor Fei Fang

• Obesity and metabolic syndrome - Principal Investigator, Professor Yvonne Böttcher

• Cancer - Principal Investigator, Professor Anita Göndör

• Use of advanced mathematical methods to solve problems in cancer biology - Principal Investigator, Researcher Junbai Wang

Recently finished projects:

• DNA repair/Genome stability - Principal Investigator, Professor Hilde Loge Nilsen

• Cancer Genome Variation - Principal Investigator, Professor Vessela N. Kristensen

External research groups using the EpiGen facilities:

• Breast Cancer

• Clinical and Molecular Oncology in ColoRectal Cancer (CMOR)

• GastroMedicine (IBSEN)

• Cardiovascular Research Group (CRG)

• Clinical Neuroscience Research Group (CNG)

• Microbiology and Infectious Medicine

• Orthopedic Research Group

• Pediatric Research Group (PAEDIA)

How we can help you:

The research laboratory at EpiGen has equipment and personnel with broad experience in a number of molecular biological methods.

We offer equipment that can be used to answer a wide range of biomedical questions and assistance on collaborative projects.

See list of equipment and techniques.

Stem Cell Facilities at EpiGen

Ahus stem cell facility (ASCF) is physically located at EpiGen and is managed by researcher Kulbhushan Sharma. The facility offers services within research in stem cell biology. Link to an extended list of stem Cell Facilities in Europe. 

We have expertise in generating patient-specific induced pluripotent cells (iPSCs) for disease modelling and potential therapies, as well as differentiating iPSCs and embryonic stem cells (ESCs) into specialized cell lines (e.g. different types of neurons, microglia, monocytes, macrophages, hepatocytes, cardiomyocytes, retinal pigmental epithelium etc.).

We also offer highly efficient, full genome editing services (knock-in, knock-out, SNP correction, reporter generation, etc.) using CRISPR technology on collaboration basis.

We are active participants of two COST programs related to genome editing: CorEuStem, CA20140 and GenE-HumDi, CA21113. Read more about CorEuStem (external site) and GenE-HumDi here (external site).

We can help with experiment planning/design, provide technical support and consultation to researchers and clinicians at Ahus as well as external users by agreement.

Stem cell facility offers:

• Patient fibroblast expansion
• Reprogramming for the generation of iPSCs using integration-free methods and their characterization
• Differentiation of iPSCs/ESCs into specialized cell types using proprietary differentiation protocols for disease modelling and drug screening
• Genome editing of human iPSC cells

Should you require assistance or wish to explore collaboration opportunities in the aforementioned research endeavors, please feel free to reach out to:

Kulbhushan Sharma, PhD  
Leader, Stem Cell Facility, Ahus  
Email: kulbhushan.sharma@medisin.uio.no / kulbhushan.sharma@ahus.no

Precision Medicine

What is precision medicine?

According to the Norwegian Medical Encyclopedia it is “a term for a set of diagnostic methods which, to a greater extent than traditional medicine, seek to find treatment or prevention that is adapted to the individual's (mainly genetic) characteristics”.

Why precision medicine?

We believe that precision diagnostics and subsequent personalized treatment can improve patients' health and well-being by increasing the opportunities for participation in studies.

Our goal

Our goal is to search for biological changes that can open up treatment options within various cancers and, in the long term, in other disease groups.

How we do it

We have broad expertise in panel sequencing, including relevant methods in bioinformatics and molecular biology, so that we can find genomic changes and put these into a biological/medical context.

Our expertise is used in various clinical studies (for example PALM study  and METIMMOX study) as in the national collaboration InPreD/InPreD Ahus. 

Read more about the PALM Study (external site in norwegian). Read more about the METIMMOX study (external site in norwegian). 

We also carry out pilots where we use new methods in precision medicine. Some examples are:

• Analysis of mutational signatures in cancer
• Functional test for homologous repair capacity in case of double thread breakage
• Kinase activity profiling

Research

Are you planning a study that could benefit from genetic precision diagnostics? We can help with analyses specially adapted to your project.
Get in touch - the earlier in planning the better!

Contact information:

Coordinator: Anna Berit Wennerström 
Manager: Diana Lilian Bordin