News - Page 2

The NCMM annual report for 2022 is now published online

This May NorMIC celebrated the 10th workshop in a series that has established it as an important Nordic platform for biomedical researchers to gain scientific knowledge on optical microscopy.

The Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine gathered in Helsinki to celebrate the signing of a renewed 10-year agreement between EMBL and the Universities of Oslo, Helsinki, Århus and Umeå.

The Seahorse XFe96 is now up and running as a shared instrument at NCMM. Two external groups from Oslo University Hospital are already using the instrument regularly and happy with the results.

NCMM group leader Nikolina Sekulic is coordinating University of Oslo’s participation in the HALRIC program, a multi-institutional initiative aimed at facilitating the cross-border use of research facilities for advanced life science research.

In February, Camila Esguerra visited Dr. Rima Nabbout's laboratory at the Imagine Institute for Genetic Diseases in Paris, France. The visit was made possible by the EATRIS-plus staff exchange programme. 

Following a successful evaluation by NCMM’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) in February 2023, the Computational Biology and Systems Medicine group led by Marieke Kuijjer has been extended for four years.

By welcoming visiting high school students to her lab, Nikolina Sekulic hopes to motivate more young aspiring students to follow a career in life science research.

NCMM group leader Anthony Mathelier will be the new Associate Director of the Centre, combined with a part-time Professor II position at the Centre for Bioinformatics.

NCMM Associate Investigator Lorena Arranz and colleagues recently published a study demonstrating that a protein involved in balancing inflammation also prevents the development of acute myeloid leukemia. NCMM support played an important part in the execution of the project.

Group leader Sebastian Waszak receives 2 million NOK from the Norwegian Cancer Society for his proposed Pioneer Project. The goal of the project is to find new treatment strategies for DIPG, by establishing novel zebrafish models of this aggressive type of brain tumor.

A new study by the Mathelier group and collaborators has found a way to predict genes that may be associated with cancer by looking at mutations in areas of the genome that do not code for proteins.

Nikoline is the new communications officer at NCMM and started on 16 January.

The first ever Oslo Bioinformatics Workshop Week was hosted at the University of Oslo in December, with Roza Berhanu Lemma and Tatiana Belova from NCMM among the organisers.

The national programme for clinical treatment research – KLINBEFORSK - has allocated research funds to Haapaniemi group for developing CRISPR-Cas9 gene therapy for STAT1 Gain-of-Function disease.

Over five days in December, NCMM hosted a PhD course introducing new approaches to multi-omic data analyses.

The four-day workshop organised by NCMM and NorMIC Imaging Platform, IBV, included both theoretical presentations and hands-on lab sessions.

Several NCMM members were the driving force behind arranging a recent RSG Norway panel talk.

EATRIS-plus staff exchange programme is enabling Dr. Esguerra's visit to discuss a potential collaboration.

New possibilities for treating rare diseases by optimising precise gene editing with CRISPR-Cas9

The two-week long national course took place at the Oslo Science Park 7 – 18 November.

Anita Kavlie, national coordinator for EATRIS Norway, has been involved in writing and organizing a new free MOOC developed under the European Joint Program of Rare Diseases with the title Introduction to translational research for Rare Diseases.

Anna is a postdoctoral researcher who recently started at the Haapaniemi group.

The study used HDX-MS to map the epitope and paratope of the new high-affinity tumor-specific antibody developed against a variant of HER2. Antibodies directed against HER2 are already used in breast cancer therapy, and the new antibody developed by the collaboration has potential to be used as a diagnostic tool or future cancer treatment.

NCMM Group Leader Dr Emma Haapaniemi will collaborate with centre leaders and NCMM Associate Investigators Prof Johanna Olweus and Prof Karl-Johan Malmberg as part of the new centre, Precision Immunotherapy Alliance (PRIMA).