News

Artificial intelligence is transforming how research is planned, analyzed, and conducted. At the same time, the technology raises important questions regarding quality, documentation, accountability, and privacy.

These issues were central when more than 100 researchers and statisticians from across the Nordic region recently gathered for a workshop organized by the Oslo Centre for Biostatistics and Epidemiology (OCBE) to discuss artificial intelligence in biomedical research.

Read the news article published on the Oslo University Hospital webpages (in Norwegian).

Ear infections lead to extensive use of antibiotics, which in turn contributes to antibiotic resistance. Professor Jukka Corander has now been awarded NOK 10 million to research a vaccine against the bacterium H. influenzae.

Antibiotic resistance is considered one of the ten greatest global health challenges. Jukka Corander is awarded NOK 28 million to continue investigating how strains of E. coli bacteria compete with one another in the human gut.

The bacterium E. coli is the most common cause of urinary tract infections and bloodstream infections. But in the search for vaccines, researchers have discovered that the bacteria are more resilient than they had thought.

Anna Chaimani will work on novel statistical methods and software tools that will facilitate the production of more precise and up-to-date clinical guidelines for treatment and prevention of health diseases.

Bacteria that often cause urinary infections can spread as rapidly as swine flu. But E. coli that are resistant to several classes of antibiotics behave differently. 

Owwww, howls your child while holding its ear and crying. Recent findings can lead to the development of a vaccine to protect against a very common type of ear infection.

Arnoldo Frigessi will be developing a new AI method for the early detection of cancer in patients with Lynch syndrome. Hanne Cathrine Lie will be contributing to a project developing following-up care for people who have survived cancer in young adulthood.

In our publications this month, you will find meta-analysis results of COVID-19 clinical trials, a new machine learning method to prioritize drug combinations in leukemia patients, a new statistical method for high-dimensional survival analysis, and much more.

The bacterium Klebsiella can cause pneumonia and blood poisoning and many patients become infected while they are in hospital. Now the Research Council of Norway’s FRIPRO fund has awarded Jessica Calland ten million kroners to carry out research on this insidious  bacterium.

The Research Council of Norway announced the research environments selected to receive national research centre status for artificial intelligence (AI) at a press conference on 11 June 2025. Among those chosen is TRUST – The Norwegian Centre for Trustworthy AI – which will now receive substantial support to establish a national research centre, with its core located in Oslo Science City. TRUST will be led by the University of Oslo (UiO), SINTEF, and the Norwegian Computing Center (NR). 

Statsminister Jonas Gahr Støre delte ut 1,2 milliarder kroner til seks forskningssentre. To av sentrene skal ledes fra Universitetet i Oslo.

Bakterien Klebsiella kan gi lungebetennelse og blodforgiftning, og mange får den mens de er innlagt på sykehus. Nå får Jessica Calland ti millioner fra NFRs FRIPRO for å forske på den lumske bakterien.

This month we showcase recent publications on physical activity in cancer patients, results of rheumatoid arthritis clinical trials and much more.

Welcome to the OCBE newsletter! This month, we showcase our recent publications on environmental exposures and cancer risk, drug repurposing, bacterial DNA sequencing and much more.

Valeria Vitelli will be developing statistical learning methods for the integration of complex and structured datasets, to be used in cancer genomics. Harry Thorpe will be studying how plasmids help bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics.

Are offshore petroelum workers on night shifts at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, and does exposure to the chemical benzene affect this risk? Scientists at IMB have received a grant of 2.55 million kroners from the Norwegian Health Association to carry out research on these questions.

Certain intestinal bacteria are found more frequently in Norway than in a number of other countries and there is also a higher incidence of bladder cancer, bowel cancer and prostate cancer. These findings may lead to new opportunities for preventing these types of cancer, according to a new study.

Even though thin melanoma is increasing the most, the number of cases of thicker melanoma is also steadily on the rise, shows a large study of melanoma incidence in Norway since the 1980s. The thickness of the tumour is an important factor for the prognosis at the time of diagnosis.

The number of cases of meningitis and blood poisoning is decreasing, and this is clearly due to the inclusion, since 2006, of pneumococcal disease into the child immunisation programme.

Researchers at the Medical Faculty at the University of Oslo have helped to develop a new method which provides an overview of several antibiotic-resistant bacteria at the same time. This can be a major breakthrough in the fight to combat serious infections in hospitals.

Men who work offshore and have been in contact with asbestos in their working environment have a higher risk of developing pleural cancer.

Integreat - norsk senter for kunnskapsdrevet maskinlæring skal gjøre Norge til en ledende nasjon innen KI, lovte blant andre forsknings- og høyere utdanningsminister Oddmund Hoel da senteret idag ble formelt lansert.

Målet er å gjøre maskinlæring mer bærekraftig, presis, pålitelig og etisk. I dag avfyrte Integreat – norsk senter for kunnskapsdrevet maskinlæring – det offisielle startskuddet.

Research shows that antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that are widespread in Norway, Great Britain and the United Stated have not taken a hold in Pakistan in spite of the extensive use of antibiotics in this region.

 Professor Arnoldo Frigessi, leader of Integreat, was surprised and delighted when he was recently awarded the NORA Lifetime Achievement Award for his eminent academic contributions to research and for his supervision of innumerable students.

Oslo University Hospital awards prizes twice yearly for outstanding research articles. OCBE post-doc Jessica Calland has now won the prize for her recent article in The Lancet Microbe on population structure and antimicrobial resistance among Klebsiella. Congratulations!

Read more about the prizes on the Oslo University Hospital webpages (in Norwegian).

There is a clear correlation between the use of a particular type of antibiotic and the increased prevalence of a multi-resistant E. coli clone. This study illustrates the need for national surveillance systems to monitor antibiotic resistance.

Dagens kunstige intelligens har mange svakheter. Den kan ta feil og sier ingenting om usikkerheten. Og den bruker mye energi. Nå er forskere i gang med å løse problemene.

OBiWoW 2023 brought together the scientific community for practical workshops on bioinformatics tools and pipelines.

"We must manage the resources from the project in a way that allows us to achieve something even greater in the future," Professor Vessela Kristensen says. She is Principal Investigator and coordinator of the EU project RESCUER.

Norges Forskningsråd har opprettet en ekspertgruppe i forbindelse med satsingen på KI. Professorene Arnoldo Frigessi, Tobias Mahler og Petter Bae Brandtzæg, alle ved UiO, deltar i gruppen.

Målrettede angrep på E. coli-bakteriens beskyttende kapsel kan bidra til å forebygge og behandle alvorlige infeksjoner i blodet, viser ny studie.

Many employees in the offshore sector work night shifts. This may make them more susceptible to aggressive prostate cancer than if they only worked during the day.

Imagine a horse race, where the winner takes it all and is awarded both food and protection against enemies. In the same way, bacteria compete with one another in the gut of newborn babies.

Every year, many people get ill from the bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae, and some variants are resistant to nearly all kinds of antibiotics. A team of scientists have now found out more about how infections from these variants arise.

A doctor discovers bacteria in a sample that is causing a case of pneumonia and prescribes antibiotics. But at the same time, there is another, nastier variant of bacteria lurking in the patient’s body that is very glad to have got rid of its competitor. 

Professor Arnoldo Frigessi skal lede et nytt SFF om kunstig intelligens på MatNat.

De er allerede i gang med å studere risiko for kreft hos oljearbeidere. Nå får forskerne 10 millioner kroner av Forskningsrådet for også å se på andre sykdommer og skader hos de som jobber offshore.

Den vitenskapelige organisasjonen IMS hedrer Arnoldo Frigessi for arbeidet med Bayesiansk metodikk. Han utnevnes nå til fellow.

Women know less about the so-called overdiagnosis of breast cancer compared to other aspects of mammogram screening. Despite this, there are few indications that women drop out of mammogram screening programmes after receiving more information.

Ph.d.-studenter og andre forskere bør oppsøke statistikerne tidlig i prosjektene deres. Da kan vi heller være med på oppbygning enn å gjøre brannslukning, oppfordrer Avdeling for biostatistikk. 

It is safe to be physically active outdoors without having to worry about the risk of melanoma, as long as you follow the sun safety advice, say the researchers behind a large, Norwegian study. 

Han har vært en av nøkkelpersonene i koronapandemiens R-tall, og sier seg imponert over VG. Nå får Arnoldo Frigessi Sverdrupprisen.

Hver tiende E. coli-prøve hadde varianter som står imot flere typer antibiotika. Forskere mener vi må passe på utviklingen framover. 

People who travel a lot account for a much greater proportion of the spread of dangerous, resistant bacteria than we previously thought.

Helt ny forskning viser at en av de mest vellykkede “sykehusbakteriene” oppstod lenge før vi hadde antibiotika og moderne sykehus.

Første masterclass i biostatistikk arrangert ved Sørlandet sykehus.

Vandana Ravindran seeks to understand the theory of complex networks, both in her research and personally. The corona virus outbreak and work to develop vaccines has made her even more sure of her project.

– Vi kan se på sannsynlig smitteutvikling helt ned på kommunenivå, basert på nordmenns reiser. Vi kan også si noe om sannsynligheten for at smitten sprer seg på tvers av kommuner, forklarer forsker Solveig Engebretsen.

– Vi jobber på spreng for å lage en modell som kan forutsi geografisk spredning av koronaviruset med mobildata, sier Arnoldo Frigessi, professor ved UiO og Oslo universitetssykehus. Han er statistiker og leder for Big Insight-senteret.

Vaccines can be far more targeted and effective than they are today. A new method will allow us to develop new vaccines more cheaply and efficiently and perhaps get one step ahead of bacteria.

A new study published in JAMA Dermatology,  shows a clear association between number of solarium sessions and SCC development.

Vi er selv opphavet til bakterien, men det var først etter at den hadde vært innom kua at den ble farlig. På ferden hadde den utviklet antibiotikaresistens.