On the occasion of Women's Day, CanCell PI Anne Simonsen and affiliated PI Helene Knævelsrud together with Professor emerita Sophie Fosså will feature on a breakfast meeting organized by the Norwegian Cancer Society. They will explore the question: "What is it like to be a woman and a cancer researcher today?"
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What is cell biology?
The journal "Cell" interviewed Anne Simonsen among several prominent cell biologists to get a birds eye view of this vast field. They conclude - "50 years ago, cell biology was a nascent field. Today, it is a vast discipline whose principles and tools are also applied to other disciplines; vice versa, cell biologists are inspired by other fields. So, the question begs: what is cell biology? The answers are as diverse as the people who define it"
Maja Radulovic's project 'LysoDARE' has been granted support of NOK 8 million from the Research Council under theFRIPRO Research Project for Young Talents program.
The 2023 ChiNoCell Seminar on Sino-Norwegian Cell Biology was hosted by Yunnan University in Kunming, capital city of Yunnan province in Southwest China, from Nov 5 to 9.
The Norwegian Cancer Society supports research that benefits various forms of cancer, and believes that it is important to support the entire breadth of cancer research, from basic research to testing new treatments. In 2023, the society allocated over NOK 220 million for research.
Acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) can be brought into remission in more than 60% of patients treated with intensive chemotherapy, but relapse is still a problem in a large proportion of patients with this diagnosis. Relapse is associated with the disease that is more difficult to treat and with a high degree of treatment failure, so it is an important goal that the treatment given in the first time contributes to the lowest possible risk of relapse.
Cellular abscission is the final step of cytokinesis that leads to cleavage of the thin intercellular bridge between the two daughter cells.
Failure of cytokinesis and abscission can result in tetraploid cells, which in the next cell division might display defects in chromosome segregation and consequent aneuploidy, a common feature of cancer cells. To understand the regulation of cytokinesis and abscission is therefore of interest in the context of cancer biology.
Lipids play crucial roles in cell and cancer biology, and CanCell scientists have made important contributions in the field of lipid biology. In a recent issue of the prestigious review journal, Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology. Kirsten Sandvig, Alicia Llorente and Tore Skotland have contributed a review on lipids in extracellular vesicles, whereas Harald Stenmark (together with collaborators at Monash University, Australia) has written a review about a particularly important class of lipids, the phosphoinositides. Both reviews highlight the importance of lipids in cancer and other diseases, both as potential biomarkers and drug targets.
Namrita Kaur and her co-workers in Alf Håkon Lystad´s project group at CanCell have discovered a novel mechanism how cells detect and respond to damage to their internal membranes, specifically to endolysosomal compartments.
Understanding the underlying mechanisms that encode cell type diversity in development and disease has long been a challenge. A paradigm shift in cancer research is to be able to identify the source or very first cancerous cells instead of chasing the last cells of a full-blown tumour at its end stage. By unlocking the secrets of these cancer stem cells, we may gain new knowledge to eliminate cancer at the beginning. The advent of single-cell multi-omics technologies has revolutionized research by enabling the simultaneous investigation of multiple types of genomics data from a mixed cell sample, tissue, or tumour.
Autophagy is a cellular degradation process that entails sequestration of cytoplasmic material by double-membrane autophagosomes. When an autophagosome fuses with a lysosome, the degradative enzymes of the lysosome will degrade the sequestered material. The autophagosome is formed from a structure called the phagophore, but it has remained unclear where the phagophore comes from and how it is shaped into an autophagosome.
Matthew graduated in 2022 from the Simonsen lab. His thesis was titled, "Characterization of specific regulators of selective and non-selective autophagy".
CanCell Young Scientists (CYS) organized the EMBO Laboratory Leadership Course in Oslo between 18-20 April. This is worldwide renowned course that EMBO offers to post-docs and early career researchers.
Clathrin controls two-way communication between T cells and antigen-presenting cells
The UiO: Life Science board had selected Audun Kvalvaag's project among six new projects to the innovation program SPARK Norway. The SPARK program supports ideas within health-related life sciences for the benefit of patients and society.
CanCell scientists, Jorrit Enserink and Pilar Ayuda-Durán, are involved in new chemotherapy research
The project aims to develop nano-medicine based drug delivery systems for chemotherapy treatment of metastatic prostate cancer.
Maja Radulovic and her co-workers have revealed a novel mechanism that contributes to lysosome repair, namely lipid transfer from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)
CanCell PI, Tor Erik Rusten and project leaders Camilla Raiborg and Marina Vietri have secured Cancer Society Grants.
The Tony B. Travel Award honors Tony Beugelsdijk, Los Alamos National Laboratory, an Association for Laboratory Automation (ALA) co-founder who passed away in August 2009.
A study entitled 'The cholesterol transport protein GRAMD1C regulates autophagy initiation and mitochondrial bioenergetics' by Matthew Yoke Wui Ng and colleagues from the Simonsen Lab at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences and the Center for Cancer Cell Reprogramming, was recently published in Nature Communications. This study addresses the role of cholesterol in regulation of autophagy and explores how autophagy might be linked to a type of kidney cancer called Clear Cell Renal Carcinoma (ccRCC).
Jørgen will talk about his pioneer project that aims to search for molecules that help cancer cells spread to new places in the body
Anders Jahre's Awards honors outstanding research in basic and clinical medicine. The prize is awarded by the University of Oslo and is one of the most prestigious awards in Nordic biomedical research. This year, CanCell Director, Harald Stenmark receives the Anders Jahre's major medical prize.
CanCell project leader Marina Vietri has received the NFR Young Research Talent grant for her project - 'Ruptured nuclear envelopes in cancer'.