Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Sabine Tejpar, KU Leuven, Belgium
- Second opponent: Research Fellow Florent Petitprez, The University of Edinburgh, UK
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor Jan Terje Andersen, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Emeritus Frode Vartdal, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Professor Frode Lars Jahnsen, University of Oslo
Summary
Colorectal cancer progression is shaped not only by tumor cells but also by the immune and stromal components of the tumor microenvironment, with macrophages playing a central and highly plastic role. This thesis applies single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to map cellular composition in normal colon and colorectal cancer, with a focus on macrophage diversity, spatial organization, and cell-cell interactions. This work identifies niche-specific macrophage subsets in normal colon, introduces scalable computation pipelines for single-cell and spatial data analysis, and reveals spatially organized tumor-associated macrophage and T cell populations in colorectal cancer. Importantly, microsatellite-stable tumors with high densities of macrophages and CD8+ T cells show improved survival and coordinated anti-tumor cellular programs across the tumor microenvironment. Together, these findings provide new insights into macrophage biology and immune organization in colorectal cancer with implications for future therapeutic strategies.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.