Department of Medical Biochemistry
At the Department of Medical Biochemistry we are mainly analysing blood samples, but also samples from urine, cerebrospinal fluids and other body fluids.
We examine amongst others the number of cells and cell types, concentrations of different proteins, lipids, metabolites, hormones and vitamins, trace elements, gases, coagulation abilities of blood, enzyme activities, and DNA sequences. The department offers several hundred different tests and perform about 10 million analyses a year.
In the field of medical biochemistry we study how diseases alter the concentration of or add new biomarkers to the blood, that with high precision can tell us what kind of disease the patient has or is at risk at getting, what treatment to give in each case, and how the patient responds to this treatment.
We do research on tumour markers, endocrinology and metabolism, inflammation, coagulation, inborn metabolic diseases, mitochondria function, tissue culture, leukaemia, DNA repair and structural biology.
The Department also has regional core facilities for research within structural biology and nodes for core facilities in advanced microscopy, flow cytometry and microarray examinations of DNA and RNA. The department offers analytical services to research projects for most routine analyses.
There are about 400 man-labour years at the department, of whom eight (5.1 man-labour years) are employed at the Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo. The university employees at the department teach the subject Clinical Biochemistry for medical students at the University of Oslo.