News

Kay Oliver Schink and his team identifies a new regulator of macropinocytosis, an important mechanism for nutrient acquisition by cancer cells.

Six new UiO:Life Science convergence environments for 2022–2026 was announced today, among these were the CanCell research groups of Anne Simonsen, Jorrit Enserink and Tor Erik Rusten. Helene Knævelsrud will also join one of the convergence projects. Congratulations to them all!

Senior scientist Marina Vietri in Harald Stenmark’s group received the “Early Career Award” of NOK 150.000 from Oslo University Hospital for her ground-breaking work on molecular mechanisms that govern sealing of the nuclear envelope to prevent cancer-promoting chromosome aberrations. Her work has been internationally recognized and has been dedicated commentary articles in leading journals such as Nature, Science and Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology.

Kia Wee Tan was interviewed in Journal of Cell Science in relation with his recent publication on JIP4s role in macropinocytosis. We are impressed by Kia Wee earning the spotlight with both his article and interview, and extends our congratulations on his merits.  

Gender and diversity equality in academia – how can we achieve this? This was the topic of our very first CanCell Equality lunch seminar held by zoom on the 9^th of June 2021. Chara Charsou, a postdoc and member of the CanCell Equality Forum introduced the keynote speaker Mari Teigen. 

Research Council Norway (NFR, Norges forskningsråd) held a call for grant proposals earlier this year, and the recipients were recently announced.

Did you miss the symposium and want to know who the new CanCell Junior grant receivers are? Do not despair; we give you all the updates here!

16th of June we hosted the CanCell Semiannual 2021 symposium. It was a success with over 100 particcipants tuning in via Zoom and featured lectures from invited speakers Pier Paolo Di Fiore from Milano and Eivind Hovig from Oslo. New to this year the event were held as a hybrid event between “on site” talks and zoominars.

Pint of Science is a global science festival that brings together scientists from all over the world to discuss their science. This year Pint of Science Oslo features Helene Knævelsrud which talks about Fruit fly sex in cancer research. See it here!  

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.