A newsletter for the new study plan in medicine for August can be found here. (Link in Norwegian.)

This will also be available on the website of the project together with other newsletters: http://www.uib.no/mofa/66684/nyhetsbrev. (Link in Norwegian.)

PhD students are invited to participate in a writing course. It is possible to participate for either 3 (workshop and course 1) or 5 days (all three training events). Those who participate for 5 days and submit the requested preparations can apply to get 1 ECTS. The price is NOK 6 000 for 3 days and NOK 10 000 for 5 days. The training events are for a maximum of 12 participants; the first 12 to register participate. If somebody cancels, the next on the list will be offered a place. The course will be held in either English or Norwegian depending on the participants.

Time: 11 – 15 September.
Place: Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, Kalfarveien 31 (room will be announced later).

Registration
Deadline: Friday 25 August.

Preparations: see this, this and this file.

For more information or questions, see the files or contact the course leader Kari Skinningsrud directly.

Continue reading →

COST is a European network organization where most countries in Europe (including Norway and all EU countries) are members. An important task for COST is to promote European research cooperation by launching scientific networks (“COST actions”).

General information about COST can be found here and here.

In June 2017, it was decided to initiate 35 new COST actions. A list of those relevant to medical and health research is found below.

If you are interested in participating, please contact Hans Hellebostad in the Research Council of Norway by 15 September 2017. (This is not necessarily the last opportunity to participate in the actions, but is set as a first deadline for the Research Council’s follow-up to COST.) You can also get more detailed information about participation in COST. Application form used to participate as a participant can be found here.

Continue reading →

The Olav Thon Foundation will for 2018 reserve NOK 20 million for grants to Nordic research collaboration in the field of medicine.

Proposals must be sent by email to Special Adviser Bjørnar Vold-Sarnes at UiO.

Deadline for submission: 15 September 2017.

More information here.

Do not have the opportunity to attend the Research Council of Norway’s Horizon 2020 courses in Lysaker? Then you can take the course at home.

The Research Council now offers three e-learning courses, so that you have better chances of success in the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. Sign up for their course portal and take the courses whenever you want and wherever you want.

Read more here.

An overview of this autumn’s Logos courses can be found here.

Researchers at the Mohn Cancer Research Laboratory, together with researchers at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, have conducted extensive work on mapping genetic changes in metastatic breast cancer. Knowledge like this is essential for the development of new therapies.

Professor Per Eystein Lønning and researcher Stian Knappskog, together with two British researchers, who are the main authors, is behind an article published last week in Cancer Cell. They have mapped what happens from a patient getting breast cancer until the cancer spreads to other organs in the body.

New technology

The work started four years ago and 163 samples from patients have been mapped. The majority of them are from Haukeland University Hospital.

– Earlier, we could only look at a single gene at a time. Thanks to new technology, it is now possible to do a broad survey of all genes relevant to the disease, explains Knappskog.

The researchers have looked at the changes in the metastatic tumour and compared these with the first tumour in the chest. They emphasize the importance of understanding which cancer cells survive treatment in order to develop better targeted treatment for patients with proliferation in the future

– In the long term, I think today’s research will enable us to cure breast cancer with proliferation. I do not know when it happens, but I am optimistic and am sure it will happen, says Professor Lønning.

Linn Iversen