A clearly proud and happy Professor Karl-Johan Malmberg welcomed a packed auditorium to the opening of the new Centre of Excellence, Precision Immunotherapy Alliance (PRIMA). Malmberg will be the Centre Director of PRIMA for the first five years of the Centre's 10-year funding period. Professor Johanna Olweus will lead the Centre for the last five years.
“Thank you for being here, we are extremely excited to get started! We have waited a long time for this and worked hard to achieve it,” Malmberg said.
Will develop even more effective immunotherapy against cancer
There have been many breakthroughs in cancer treatment with immunotherapy in the last decade. However, there are only a few types of cancers where this treatment is effective.
In PRIMA, the researchers want to develop new immunotherapy for patient groups for which there is no effective treatment. To achieve this goal, the researchers must overcome key challenges in the research field so that precision immunotherapy can be developed for cancer types that are difficult to treat.
Will use complementary skills to achieve goals
Malmberg presented the group leaders and described how the Centre has assembled an expert team consisting of seven research groups from the University of Oslo (UiO) and Oslo University Hospital (OUH).
“We will utilise our complementary expertise to address the challenges from several angles. We will also benefit from the synergies that arise when we work together. This will give us the opportunity to solve the challenges in a more coordinated and efficient way,” the Centre Director said, who also highlighted the Centre's close and long-term collaboration with world-leading scientists in the field.
The seven research groups in PRIMA
-
NK cell biology and NK cell therapy - Led by Karl-Johan Malmberg
-
Experimental immunotherapy - Led by Johanna Olweus
-
Laboratory for adaptive immunity and homeostasis - Led by Jan Terje Andersen
-
Blood and Lymphoproliferative Diseases - Led by Ludvig A. Munthe
-
Lymphoma biology - Led by June H. Myklebust
-
Protein Array - Led by Fridtjof Lund-Johansen
-
Better therapies for rare immune diseases - Led by Emma Haapaniemi
The goal is to treat more patients
Groundbreaking technologies, a unique program design and large biobanks are among the factors that made PRIMA possible.
Malmberg reminded everyone in the audience that the overall goal of PRIMA is to be able to develop precision immunotherapy to treat more forms of cancer and thus more patients.
“We want to cure patients, that’s the goal,” he said.
You can read more about PRIMA's research focus on Medisinbloggen (in Norwegian).
Results come with long-term basic funding
“It is a privilege to share this day with you, the start of a new Centre of Excellence!”
Mari Sundli Tveit, Managing Director of the Research Council of Norway (RCN), said that their goal to promote outstanding research of the highest quality. She pointed out that to get CoE funding you have to do an outstanding and excellent proposal, and that PRIMA succeeded.
“Immunotherapies are revolutionizing cancer therapy by providing hope for patients. We expect that the new Centre of Excellence will benefit patients and have consequences that reach far beyond our borders. Your outstanding research will gain insights that will lead to more treatment options and better lives for patients and their families,” she told Malmberg and Olweus.
She pointed out the combination of doing groundbreaking research with the goal of curing patients, which Malmberg had highlighted.
“By embracing innovation and developing cutting edge therapies, PRIMA will be a frontrunner in the field, also internationally. This funding provides long-term basic funding. We hope it will give you the opportunities you need to achieve your goals.”
PRIMA stems from strong research groups
The rector at UiO, Svein Stølen, was also full of praise.
“This is a great day for UiO! It is a great honour to be able to join PRIMA's celebration. We are very proud to host this great new Centre of Excellence!”
In total, UiO has had 22 Centres of Excellence since the scheme began. Stølen pointed out how these centres have had tremendous impact that have benefited and lifted the rest of the university by association.
“We need quality, and we need competition to drive research forward. The effect that our Centres of Excellence have had on Norwegian research communities has been enormous,” he said.
Stølen praised the collaboration between UiO and OUH.
“The collaboration with OUH is extremely important to us, and it is an equal and excellent partnership that we greatly value.”
The Rector highlighted how PRIMA has become possible thanks to several research groups, such as the K.G. Jebsen centre for B-cell malignancies led by Ludvig A. Munthe, one of the group leaders in PRIMA, the K.G. Jebsen center for cancer immunotherapy which was led by Olweus, and the great research collaboration with the Norwegian Cancer Society.
He further pointed out how Malmberg's Toppforsk award from the Research Council of Norway in 2018 and Olweus' Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) from 2020, with a new ERC Proof of Concept award in 2023, also have laid the foundations for PRIMA.
“Thank you to those of you who have laid the groundwork here. It is an ecosystem and a patchwork, and you need them all to have success,” he said.
“Our mission at UiO is to support strong and excellent research, and we look forward to following you.”
Proud of the collaboration with UiO
“Sincere congratulations, I am honoured to be here today,” Acting Managing Director at OUH, Morten Reymert, said.
“UiO is the host institution, but we are an equal and important partner. Most of the researchers are located at the hospital. We are proud of the strong collaboration between UiO and OUH,” he said.
He pointed out that immunotherapy is both timely and incredibly important in Norway today.
“Immunotherapy can save the lives of patients that does not response to current treatments. We are confident that PRIMA will do prominent and excellent work and research. Our expectations are indeed very high,” he told PRIMA's researchers.
Sixth Centre of Excellence at the Institute of Clinical Medicine
PRIMA was one of nine environments to be awarded a CoE status in 2022, selected from a total of 161 applicants. PRIMA is the sixth Centre of Excellence at the Institute of Clinical Medicine. The research activities officially start on 1 July.
The key note speakers were Professor Michel Sadelain from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), USA, and Professor John Haanen from the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI). Both are world leading pioneers in the development of cell therapies against cancer. Sadelains lecture was on new concepts for gene therapy and Haanen shared new advances in T-cell-based immunotherapy.
How can we make immunotherapy more effective?
Johanna Olweus concluded the seminar by placing PRIMA's goals into a wider context, particularly in light of the contributions from the key note speakers.
“In T cell-based immunotherapy, the cancer cell targets that are recognized by the T cells and lead to T-cell mediated killing are generally unknown. Cancer Research UK has recently identified this as a global challenge.”
“If, based on knowing the gene sequence of a T-cell receptor, you can identify what it will target, completely new possibilities will open up for designing effective immunotherapies,” she explained.
Another challenge is how we can bring new gene therapy concepts to patients.
“CAR T-cell therapy is currently very costly and has limited infrastructure. This prevents new immunotherapy strategies from reaching clinical treatment and thus benefiting patients. In 2021, the Centre for Advanced Cell and Gene Therapy was opened, and this could give Norwegian patients early access to new immunotherapies,” said Olweus.
She predicted that delivery of genes to immune cells via nanoparticles or viruses directly to the patient could both simplify and reduce the cost of treatment in the future.
Thankful for all the support for PRIMA
Olweus rounded off by thanking the Research Council, the Norwegian Cancer Association and Helse Sør-Øst, as well as the host institution UiO and the partner institution OUH, for their great support to PRIMA research groups over many years. Significant support from the Stiftelsen Kristian Gerhard Jebsen and the ERC was also highlighted.
“This support has been a prerequisite for the results that have led to PRIMA being awarded CoE status,” she concluded.
See the entire opening program here.