News

Helene Knævelsrud makes an appearance in the popular Norwegian podcast "Mum is working" aka @mammajobber on Facebook.

With almost 14k followers on Facebook the podcast has gained a special place in our hearts. In the podcast "En dag skal jeg gjøre alt perfekt, men ikke i dag" Helene is talking about her life as a cancer researcher and a mum. How is the life of a project manager, mum and scientist?  And how do you overcome broken expectations? Listen to the podcast here to know more!

Late in December Anne Simonsen and several other CanCell researchers got the great news from the Norwegian Research council that they support their research with several millions. You can read about it in this CanCell news article. In this brand new video (Norwegian) posted by the Norwegian Ministry of Education on their Facebook pages we are invited into the lab of Anne Simonsen where she do research on Autophagy, a process that is implicated that when it is malfunctioning it have a role in both development of diseases like Cancer and Alzheimers. Anne is working to understand what this role is and how this happens.

Autophagy, ‘self-eating’, is the process by which cells capture and degrade components in their own interior that are harmful or superfluous, in order to recycle, detoxify and reuse them. In recent years, it was discovered that an important player in cells are fluid droplets -- like drops of oil in water -- that are enriched with proteins to perform various functions. Now, in a new paper published in Nature, CanCell scientists have collaborated with an international team to unravel how autophagy can capture droplets of “fluid” proteins inside the cell. The research team has uncovered the physics behind droplet autophagy, and how droplets also can serve as platform to enable autophagy of other cellular components.

Since its beginning in 2010, Tekna’s Master stipend has been awarded to several candidates and helped them create extraordinary master projects. For the first time ever it has been awarded to a master project in the life sciences.

The Norwegian Centre for Molecular Medicine (NCMM) is working internationally to promote young and talented researchers to grow. The centre focus on molecular medicine, translational research and biotechnology and it is part of a big commitment to life sciences done by UiO. CanCell researcher Helene Knævelsrud has been appointed as a young associate investigator and Anne Simonsen has been re- elected as an associate investigator in the centre for the second time. 

The annual announcements of grants from Research Council Norway (NFR) and South-East Norway Regional Health Authority (HSØ) were a success for several CanCell scientists. Marina Vietri, Kay Schink, Kjetil Boye, Jorrit Enserink, Tor Erik Rusten and Anne Simonsen were all awarded grants. 

The inaugurating Annual ChiNoCell meeting was started today at 9 in the morning Norwegian time and 4 in the afternoon in Beijing. As a part of international partnership (INTPART) from the Research Council of Norway, ChiNoCell is a collaboration between Yunnan University and Tsinghua University in Beijing and University of Oslo.

Master student Riccarda Schimanski and her supervisor Viola Lobert from CanCell and Rusten Lab show us the place where the secrets of cancer are exposed in a video preview from their research lab.

Maybe you have felt it too? There are thousands of things that needs to be done in just a small timeframe. Especially when you rather want to go for a long walk or clean your apartment instead of studying or maybe you suddenly find yourself deep into the newest Netflix series when you should have been exercising?  But how can you stop procrastinating and keep focus on your goal? Can science help you in this case? How can you be motivated, or maybe the motivation itself is the key to stop procrastinating?  CanCell senior scientist Helene Knævelsrud has written a piece in Morgenbladet* about procrastination and how to avoid doing it.

It is with humble gratitude and great joy we may announce that the Norwegian Cancer Society, Kreftforeningen, has granted project funding to Harald Stenmark and Tor Erik Rusten through their research programme 'Open Call 2020'. In the project description, it is stated that it funds ground-breaking projects in all fields of cancer research within the five categories basic research, translational research, clinical research, epidemiological research and research based on health and social science. This year 130 million NOK is granted to 20 different promising projects in Norway.

Cell biologists and biophysicists join forces to bend biological membranes

Biological membranes deform to generate a vesicle within a vesicle. This phenomenon, called intraluminal vesicle formation, is a crucial step in the cellular clearance of obsolete transmembrane proteins, such as for example growth factor receptors. When this mechanism fails, cells can divide uncontrolled and cancer can arise.

We would like to welcome Amani Al Outa and Miriam Formica to CanCell! They will be performing their postdoctoral work in Jorrit Enserink’s lab with Helene Knævelsrud as their project leader.

Congratulations to CanCell's very own Director Harald Stenmark who turns 60 this year! He was celebrated with an Anniversary Symposium at OCCI and Zoom today (23.10) honoring his illustrious career and person. 

CRISPR is the word on everyone’s lips and in every newsfeed after Jennifer Doudna and Emanuelle Charpentier yesterday was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their groundbreaking discovery of it. But what is CRISPR and what does it do?

Today, Anne Simonsen, co-director of CanCell and professor at Institute for Basic Medical Sciences was bestowed the lifetime honour of EMBO Membership . She and 62 other leading scientists was awarded this in recognition of their remarkable achievements in the life sciences. We  extend our congratulations!

The grant application "Understanding Membrane Dynamics and their Implications for Cancer with Correlative Optical Nanoscopy and Artificial Intelligence" (MEDYCONAI), with Stefan Stanciu at the University of Bucharest as coordinator  and Harald Stenmark at CanCell as project partner has been awarded support from the Romania-Norway EEA research programme.

In a recent paper in Nature Cell Biology, an international team led by scientists at CanCell and the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences shows that uncontrolled repair of micronuclear membranes causes chromosome shattering associated with cancer.

Anette Christensen Lie-Jensen completed an outstanding digital disputation through Zoom on Friday June 12th to defend her thesis: "ALIX in cell division in vivo".

Andreas Brech started as adjunct professor at Institute for Biosciences (IBV), Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Oslo on June 1st. 

In a recent article in Journal of Cell Biology, published online on the 1^st of June, 2020, scientist Nina Marie Pedersen and her coworkers in Camilla Raiborg’s project group at Institute for Cancer Research and Centre for Cancer Cell Reprogramming (CanCell), identify a new mechanism of how cancer cells grow invadopodia. 

We were once again fortunate to have our user panel to give feedback on our research grants proposals, this time on Zoom. 

We are delighted to share that Antoni Wiedlocha, senior scientist in Harald Stenmark's group, is receiving a European research grant to investigate FGFR-targeted cancer therapy.

Martine Mesel Isom and Ragnhild Eskeland are featured in "Viten" in the National newspaper Aftenposten with their article on CRISPR/Cas9. 

CanCell scientists from the Stenmark Lab participated in the exhibition "Nanocosmos" at Kunstplass Akersgata, as a part of the UiO:Life Science Programmable Cell-like Compartments convergence environment. 

The PIs at CanCell have embellished on the research strategies of CanCell for future improvement in cancer treatment in a blog entry at the Medical Faculty.