The Scientific committee of the Norwegian Gastroenterological Society awarded a prize of 10.000 NOK for the best scientific work in the category of Liver, Bile and Pancreas diseases to PhD student Usha Tharmathas from NoPSC. She received the prize for her work; “PRO-C3: an emerging tool for dynamic evaluation of disease progression in primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC)”. This study shows promising results for PRO-C3 as a prognostic biomarker for disease development in PSC and a potential surrogate marker for endpoints in clinical studies.
NoPSC PhD student Sara Tjønnfjord was also awarded with a prize of 10.000 NOK for the best presentation by the Scientific Committee of the Norwegian Gastroenterological Society at the annual meeting. The presentation was entitled: “Impact of Inflammatory bowel disease and colectomy on circulation biomarkers associated with prognosis in primary sclerosing cholangitis.”
Last but not least; PhD student Sigurd Breder from NoPSC recieved a prize of 10.000 NOK from Mage-tarmforbundets research funds. Mage-tarmforbundet is an organization for patients with intestinal diseases. He received the award for his work related to potential new DNA markers for early diagnosis of cholangiocarcinoma. The committees reasoning was: “The current methods to discover cancer in the bile ducts are insufficient, and many receives the diagnosis too late. This study shows impressive potential for new DNA-markers that may discover cancer earlier, even before clinical diagnosis. We consider this an important step towards more precise and less invasive surveillance for a group of patients that lacks good tools for early diagnosis today.”