See also LinkedIn (see right column).
Scientific Interests
Immune regulation and cancer immunology, cancer precision medicine, cancer biology, cell signaling in health and disease, drug development, translational medicine and innovation.
Current positions
- Head and Director, Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), Oslo Univ. Hospital (OUH) from 2018 and from 2021 also Director, OUH Centre for Precision Medicine in Cancer (CEPREC)
- Group Leader ICR, Dept. of Cancer Immunology (group leader since 1997, at ICR since 2018)
- Professor of Medicine, University of Oslo (UiO) (since 2001, from 2018 at Institute for Clinical Medicine))
Previous positions and international research experience
2008-2018 Director and Professor, Centre for Molecular Medicine Norway (NCMM), Nordic EMBL Partnership, UiO
2011-2017 Adjunct Senior Scientist, Dept. Infect. Dis., OUH
2003-2016 Director, Biotechnology Centre, UiO (merged into NCMM from 2017)
2001-2005 Chair and Professor, Faculty of Medicine Thematic Research Programme for Signal Transduction , UiO
2001-2010 Chief Scientific Officer, Lauras AS (adjunct position)
2001-2018 Professor I (full) at Institute for Basic Medical Sciences, UiO (Molecular Medicine, Biochemistry, on leave of absence to lead Biotechnology Ctr and NCMM 2003-18)
1998-2000 Senior Scientist and Group Leader, Inst. Basic Medical Sciences, UiO
1995-1997 Postdoctoral fellow, Inst. Med. Biochemistry, UiO
1994, 1998 Internships, Medicine, Surgery, General Practise
1988, 1993 Research stays University of California, San Diego, CA and Université Laval, Quebec, Canada
Research achievements and key leadership assignments
2019 Honorary Member, Norwegian Society for Immunology
2018 Faculty Medal, Faculty of Medicine for wise and outstanding leadership of NCMM
2018- NCMM Associate Investigator
2018-2022 Partner in K.G. Jebsen Centre for B cell malignancies
2018 Digitalis Purpurea Award by the Medical Faculty, UiO for outstanding scientific leadership
2016 King Olav V’s Prize for Cancer Research (Life achievement award by Norwegian Cancer Soc.)
2013-17 Partner and Assistant Director in K.G. Jebsen Inflammation Research Centre
2013-19 Partner in K.G. Jebsen Centre for Cancer Immunotherapy
2012 Chair of Gordon Research Conference on Cyclic nucleotide PDEs (vice chair 2010)
2010-19 EU-Openscreen, Norwegian Partner, Head, NOR-Openscreen nat. infrastructure chem. biol.
2006-12 Organizer of 4 FEBS/EMBO/ESF Workshops on Spatiotemporal signaling, Oslo
2008 Elected member of ScanBalt Academy for Life Science
2008-18 EATRIS, Norwegian Partner / National Director, ESFRI project and ERIC
2008-17 Coordinator in one and Partner in three NordForsk grants
2006 Co-organizer of Nobel Symposium on the Adipocyte
2005 Elected member of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
2005 Organizer ESF 2nd Mtg. on Functional Genomics and Disease, Oslo
2002-2015 Coordinator 2 EU FP6 RTD and STREP projects, partner 4 FP7 & 1 Hz2020 projects
2002 Recipient of the Anders Jahre Medical Award for Younger Scientists (Nordic Prize)
2002 King’s Gold Medal to Line M. Grønning Wang for her Thesis (supervisor Kjetil Taskén)
2001-2007 Young Excellent Investigator Programme, Research Council of Norway (RCN).
Commissions of trust, selected
2019- OUH Research Committee (member), OUH Precision Medicine (member) & OUH Precision Cancer Medicine (chair) Committees
2019- Cancer Research UK’s New Agents Committee
2018- Scientific Council (vice-chair), Norwegian Cancer Society
2018- Scientific Advisory Board, PCI Biotech ASA
2017-22 Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) Scientific Committee (European Union)
2017- Associate Editor, Frontiers Immunol. (T cell biology) (Review Editor 2010-17)
2017-2021 Chair, SAB for Biocity Turku Biocenter and Turku Centre for Biotechnology
2016 Chair, SciLifeLab evaluation, panel 2 (Chem. Biol. & Drug Dev.)
2015, 2016 Chair, Academy of Finland Research Professorships Selection Panel
2014- Panel Member: ERC LS3 panel, Starting grants
2011- PLoS One Academic Editor
2011- Scientific Advisory Board, Institute for Biomedical Technology, Tampere Finland
2003- Panel member in Evaluation panels in panels in Research Council of Norway, Swedish Research Council, Academy of Finland, EU, NIH National Cancer Institute.
2006- Grant Reviewer ERC, EU, Hfsp, Welcome Trust, CRUK and most natl. European Res agencies.
2006- Ad hoc reviewer for approx. 30 journals (25-30 papers/year).
2006- More than 30 Selection Board Committees for positions in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland. More than 25 Tenure and Promotion Reviews in UK, US, Switzerland a.o.
2006- More than 25 Ph.D.-evaluation committees in Norway, France, Sweden, Denmark, Finland
Communication of Science
Taskén has published more than 295 articles in peer-reviewed journals, which have been cited some 14,000 times in the literature (h-index 63). He has given more than 300 lectures and seminars, internationally and nationally, and his group's research has been described and featured in countless magazine and newspaper articles. Taskén has also published many popular press articles, as well as participated in numerous newspaper and radio interviews.