Key local collaborators
Research Institute for Internal Medicine (RIIM)
The Institute was headed by Prof. Bente Halvorsen and from the summer by Espen Melum in 2022. The research groups led by Espen Melum and Johannes E.R. Hov respectively are located at RIIM and several collaborative projects are established with the groups of, among others, Ass. Prof. Marius Trøseid, Dr. Thor Ueland and Prof. Bente Halvorsen.
Department of Transplantation Medicine
Prof. Pål-Dag Line and Dr. Bjarte Fosby collaborate with NoPSC on projects related to liver transplantation in PSC and induced murine models of cholangitis.
Department of Rheumatology, Dermatology and Infectious diseases
Rheumatologists Prof. Øyvind Molberg and Dr. Anna-Maria Hoffmann-Vold collaborate with NoPSC on immunology and microbiome studies.
Department of Pathology
Dr. Peter Jebsen, Prof. Tor J. Eide, Dr. Henrik Reims and Dr. Krzysztof Grzyb are all involved in the histological and immunohistochemical evaluation of tissue samples from PSC patients and samples from experimental mouse models. Prof. Frode Jahnsen is a collaborator on microbiome studies.
Department of Gastroenterology at Ullevål
Department Head Prof. Asle Medhus and Prof. Marte Lie Høivik are important collaborators on multiple projects including the original IBSEN and the new IBSEN III study.
Department of Comparative Medicine
For many years NoPSC has had a close and productive collaboration with the Department Head, Ass. Prof. Henrik Rasmussen and the staff at the animal facility.
Department of Cardiology
Prof. Lars Gullestad is an important collaborator on microbiome of statins and cardiovascular disease.
Center for Clinical Heart Research
Prof. Ingebjørg Seljeflot is a collaborator on circulating biomarkers of the gut barrier.
Department of Infectious Diseases
Dr. Dag-Henrik Reikvam is another key collaborator on gut microbiome studies.
Department of Medical Genetics
The Immunogenetics group, led by Prof. Benedicte A. Lie is involved in several projects related to the further characterization of the HLA association in PSC.
Institute of Immunology
NoPSC has a longstanding collaboration with the Institute of Immunology in our functional genetic projects. In particular the good collaborations with Section of Transplantation Immunology, led by Prof. Torstein Egeland and Prof. John Torgils Vaage, and the research group of Dr. Fridtjof Lund-Johansen, are important for the activities of NoPSC.
Department of Medical Biochemistry
In conjunction with the establishment of the NoPSC Biobank quality control project the collaboration with Dr. Yngve Thomas Bliksrud is highly appreciated.
Institute for Cancer Research
A collaboration with Prof. Guro Lind, Department of Molecular Oncology at Radiumhospitalet, is the basis for epigenetics-centered projects on early diagnosis of cholangiocarcinoma in PSC.
Department of Radiology
The involvement of the Department of Radiology at Rikshospitalet in the prospective follow-up of PSC patients has been crucial for the success of the initiative. We are particularly grateful to Dr. Andreas Abildgaard, Dr. Knut Brabrand, Gunter Kemmerich and Ida Björk for their active contributions.
Department of Paediatric Research
Department head Ass. Prof. Runar Almaas is an important collaborator on liver transplantion research and pediatric PSC, and Dr. Gareth Sullivan on regenerative medicine.
Key national collaborators
Hybrid Technology Hub at University of Oslo
Resent work on organ on a chip includes a close collaboration Dr. Hanne Scholz and Center director, Prof. Stefan Krauss at the Center of Excellence Hybrid Technology Hub.
The IBSEN study group
The biological material collected by Prof. Morten Vatn, Prof. Bjørn Moum and several other co-workers of the IBSEN study group is still important for several of the basic genetic and metagenomic studies at NoPSC.
Akershus University Hospital
The collaboration with Dr. Kristin Kaasen Jørgensen regarding the regional network for Autoimmune Liver Diseases is ongoing and will continue for many years to come. Prof Jørgen Jahnsen’s group at Department of Gastroenterology and Dr. Anne Nergård and Dr. Aida Kapic Lunder at the Department of Radiology are important contributors and collaborators in MRI studies in the IBSEN cohorts.
Haukeland University Hospital and University of Bergen
For the prospective PSC cohort and advanced imaging modalities there is a close collaboration with Prof. Odd Helge Gilja and several other researchers at the Section for Gastroenterology and the Norwegian Centre of Excellence in Gastrointestinal Ultrasonography at the Medical Department
at Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen. For the bile acid and microbiota projects, Prof. Rolf Berge at the University of Bergen provides the serum lipid measurements.
BEVITAL AS
Prof. Per Magne Ueland and co-workers at BEVITAL are important collaborators in project related to metabolomic biomarkers, including biomarkers of microbial function.
Haraldsplass Deaconess Hospital
The leader of the clinical group in Bergen, Mette Vesterhus, has a permanent position with other strong collaborations at Haraldsplass Deaconess Hospital.
Key international collaborators
The Nordic Liver Transplant Group
Collaborators in Helsinki (Dr. Arne Nordin), Stockholm (Prof. Bo-Göran Ericzon and Dr. Carl Jorns), Gothenburg (Prof. William Bennet) and Copenhagen (Dr. Allan Rasmussen) are involved in several projects where data from the Nordic Liver Transplant Registry are required.
Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
Prof. Annika Bergquist is a close collaborator on clinical projects in PSC and has also participated in the genetics studies. Ass. Prof. Niklas Björkström (Guest Professor at NoPSC) is involved in projects relating to human immunology in PSC. They are both a part of the management group of the Strategic Prospective Scandinavian PSC Biobank (ScandPSC)
Molecular and Clinical Medicine, Wallenberg Laboratory, University
of Gothenburg, Sweden
Prof. Fredrik Bäckhed and Prof. Hanns-Ulrich Marschall have been collaborators related to the gut microbiota axis for several years. Bäckhed is an expert on gut microbiota, metabolism and gnotobiotic animals and has been an advisor and collaborator on gut microbiota studies in mice, while hepatologist Hanns-Ulrich Marschall contributes with bile acids expertise. In the context of this collaboration, postdoc Antonio Molinaro from Gothenburg is from Dec 2022 postdoc at NoPSC, funded by a UEG grant.
Uppsala University, Sweden
Associate prof. Daniel Globisch is an increasingly import collaborator, providing unique expertise on the biochemistry of microbial metabolites
Nordic BioScience, Denmark
Morten Karsdal, CEO of Nordic Biosciences in Denmark, has focused his research on the discovery and development of novel biochemical markers of fibrosis, and collaborates with NoPSC on several projects related to the characterization of fibrosis and the development of new, targeted, PSC-specific fibrosis markers as prognostic tools in PSC.
Institute for Clinical and Molecular Biology, Christian-Albrechts University, Kiel, Germany
Prof. Stefan Schreiber and Prof. Andre Franke’s groups in the German excellence cluster “Inflammation at interfaces” are involved in technically advanced projects within the genetic and metagenomic projects.
Universitätsklinikum Dresden, Germany
There is a growing collaborative activity with Prof. Jochen Hampe.
University Hospital Heidelberg, Germany
Prof. Peter Schirmacher, Head of Pathology at the University Hospital Heidelberg in Germany, represent a world-leading center expert in hepato-biliary pathology. Together with Dr. Benjamin Goeppert he provides pathology expertise to collaborational projects related to genomic profiling of PSC-associated biliary tract cancers. We also have a strong collaboration in projects related to circulating biomarkers in PSC.
Department of Internal Medicine I, University of Bonn, Germany
Dr. Taotao Zhou is out main contact in Bonn, taking over for Dr. Tobias J. Weismüller (an important collaborator within the IPSCSG), regarding the International PSC Study Group (IPSCSG) database project comprising more than 8000 PSC patients.
IPSCSG, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
The secretariat of the IPSCSG was located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, for the laset year in 2022, in the capable hands of Prof. Cyriel Ponsioen and Prof. Ulrich Beuers at the University of Amsterdam's Faculty of Medicine.
Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, UK
The HLA association in PSC poses particular challenges, and the collaboration with Prof. John Trowsdale and senior researcher James Traherne and Vasilis Kosmoliaptsis in Cambridge is invaluable for the progress of several of our functional genetic projects. Also ongoing collaboration with Dr. Fotis Sampaziotis at Cambridge Biorepository for Translational Medicine at the Wellcome - MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute has proved extremely valuable regarding organoids and regenerative medicine.
University of Cambridge, Addenbrookes’s Hospital, UK
Prof. Arthur Kaser (former Guest Professor at NoPSC), Head of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK, is still involved in one of the main translational work packages related to the functional characterization of one of the PSC risk genes; GPR35. This project was funded within the Scientia Fellows’ program of the University of Oslo through 2018 and further by the Regional Health South-East Health Authority in Norway and involves postdoc Georg Schneditz and Dr. Nicole Kaneider-Kaser.
University of Birmingham, UK
Prof. David Adams (former Guest Professor at NoPSC) at the Center for Liver Research at the Institute of Biomedical Research, University of Birmingham, collaborate on several projects related to the further characterization of the HLA related immune response in PSC.
Royal Free Hospital London, UK
Prof. Massimo Pinzani (Guest Professor at NoPSC), director of the Institute for Liver and Digestive Health at University College London and the Royal Free Hospital in London, and Dr. Douglas Thorburn at the same institutions, collaborate with NoPSC on projects related to the characterization of fibrosis and the development of novel targeted PSC-specific fibrosis markers as prognostic tools in PSC in a tri-party collaboration with Nordic BioScience.
Medical University of Vienna and Medical University of Graz, Austria
In collaboration with Prof. Michael Trauner and Prof. Peter Fickert, ongoing projects aim at crossvalidating findings in mouse models of PSC with human data. Prof. Michael Trauner (former Guest Professor at NoPSC) has extensive experience in animal models of PSC and serves as an important collaborator related to the development of a bile duct specific Cre mouse.
Sapienza, Università di Roma, Italy
Prof. Eugenio Gaudio, Domenico Alvaro and coworkers are experts on biliary tree stemcells, and material from the NoPSC Biobank is used to explore these cells in PSC patients. In addition we have a close collaboration with the COST-Action European Cholangiocarcinoma Network where Prof. Vincenzo Cardinale serves as COST-Action chair.
Biodonostia Research Institute, Donostia University Hospital, San Sebastian, Spain
Dr. Jesus M. Banales is the Head of the Liver Diseases Group at the Biodonostia Research Institute and the coordinator of the European Network for the study of Cholangiocarcinoma. Dr. Banales serves as an important collaborator on projects related to PSC-associated biliary tract cancers.
Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Spain
In 2020 we established collaboration with the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) group. This center, now lead by Maria Reig, is world leading on hepatocellular carcinoma research. Key collaborating researcher is Marco Sanduzzi-Zamparelli, who visited NoPSC for 3 months during the autumn 2020.
Toronto Centre for Liver Disease, Toronto General Hospital, Canada
Dr. Gideon Hirschfield (former Birmingham, UK) continues the collaboration with NoPSC regarding characterization of the HLA related immune response in PSC from Toronto Centre for Liver Disease, Toronto General Hospital, Canada. Biostatistician Bettina E. Hansen is leading the statistical analyses of clinical data collected in the International PSC Study Group (IPSCSG) database project, assisted by Dr. Aliya Gulamhusein at the same institution.
The Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA
Collaboration with Dr. Konstantinos Lazaridis and Dr. Lewis Roberts at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester has been ongoing regarding our projects on the genetics of PSC. Via infrastructure at the Mayo Clinic, DNA from PSC patients in USA and Canada are collected and utilized in local projects as well as for verification of findings in genetic studies at NoPSC.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
Prof. Richard Blumberg is an important collaborator in Dr. Espen Melum’s projects related to NKT cells. In addition, a collaboration with Dr. Joshua Korzenik on PSC pathogenesis has been initiated.
Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Vilnius, Lithuania
In 2020 we were awarded a grant from the EEA Baltic research funds to the project “Gut-blood-liver axis: Circulating microbiome as non-invasive biomarker for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis”. This project is chaired from Lithuania, where Gediminas Kiudelis is PI, and the project partners include both Latvian (Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre) and Estonian (University of Tarty) institutions. The project will run 2021-2023 and involve both the Hov and Melum groups.