Daily Archives: Friday August 21st, 2015

Welcome back!

I hope you all had a nice summer, and that you have had the chance to recharge your batteries and are ready for new achievements this autumn.
The department has a new administration manager, Julie Stavnes. She used to work in the oil industry, and will be able to see the department administration with fresh eyes. A detailed presentation of her can be found elsewhere in this issue.
Eva Gerdts has resigned as program coordinator after putting in a huge effort over several years, and is replaced by Jone Trovik from the gyn / obs environment.

This autumn there are several important issues for the department. The current strategic plan for K2 expires this year. We need to evaluate to what extent we have reached the goals we set and, not least, prepare a new one. The K2 organization will be adjusted.
The implementation of the new curriculum in medicine is to be implemented.
The focus on applications for external projects must be encouraged.
And not least the tight economy is a theme.I report that K2’s economy is improving. I will come backk to these and other matters later.
Per

K2 paper in NEJM

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Simon Dankel (pictured), Christine Haugen, Gunnar Mellgren and others at K2/the Hormon Laboratoy have participated in a study that was published in New England Journal of Medicine Wednesday evening.
The study describes how a common genetic obesity-variant in the FTO-gene region alters the energy metabolism directly in fat cells, and which genes and proteins that are involved in this new mechanism. Using the FTO-variant as an example, the study presents new comprehensive strategies to explore and understand the mechanisms of regulatory genetic variants in non-coding DNA, which gives hope of finding a number of new targets for personalized treatment of common diseases in the decades to come.