Monthly Archives: October 2019

The OWLS prepare for landing…

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It is hard to keep track regarding the variety of teaching and teachers affiliated with K2 and participating in the range of University initiated subjects within the programs of dentistry, medicine, nutrition and pharmacy. Each program are using teachers across departments. With K2’s organizational structure the Research group leaders are those formally “in line” but their main focus are regarding the group/participants’ research. To fully be aware of each of their group members’ participation and competence regarding teaching may not be on top of the leadership agenda.

K2 therefore has initiated a process to bring forward the teaching responsibilities we hold at our department and propose the function called UGLE (OWL); Norwegian UndervisningsGruppeLEder (Group leader for teaching/education). The UGLE should hold a permanent academic position and within the specified subject allocated, surveil all the teachers at K2 within this subject, across research groups.

The working group has proposed a mandate and suggested who will be honored with the first 2-year round of being an UGLE. We have also named their vice-UGLE who should step up during UGLE-absence and as UGLE for the following period.

I would ask all of You teachers to look through the mandate; are the functions amended to the UGLEs appropriate?  Are there teaching areas/subjects that we are unaware of? Do You find which UGLE cover your teaching area(s)? The working group really need Your feedback to correct the mandate before we release the UGLEs.

Another matter: as mentioned in K2-nytt before summer break: K2 will prioritize bioinformatics. We thus embark on a survey regarding what You as academics consider needed to be provided of bioinformatics education. Anagha Joshi (the K2 affiliated bioinformatician) will submit at questionnaire to the academic staff. I hope most of you will provide answers: WHAT are Your needs? Hopefully then we may tailor the bioinformatics education to the different needs within K2.

HSE-corner: Safety inspection rounds 2019

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Preparations for this year’s safety inspection rounds are ongoing! The safety representatives and head of administration will go through the physical work environment at Laboratoriebygget on Monday 4th November and BUS and Kvinneklinikken on Wednesday 27th of November.

We kindly ask everyone who has anything to report, to fill out and send in the forms to Julie by email (select the form that fits you). Deadline for sending in the forms is the last Friday prior to the safety rounds, specifically Friday 1st November for Laboratoriebygget and Friday 22nd November for the round on BUS and KK. Please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions. More information and the forms are available on the following website.

K2 congratulates Eystein Husebye on Helse Vest’s Research award 2019.

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Helse Vest’s 2019 Research award was awarded Eystein Husebye. Head of department Pål Njølstad received the award on behalf of Eystein, who himself was away when the award was announced during the 2019 Helse Vest research conference this Thursday. Congratulations!

Read the article on the reward here (norwegian).

From left CEO Eivind Hansen, Helse Bergen, Pål Njølstad, UiB (on behalf of the research award winner Eystein Sverre Husebye), og technical director Helse Vest, Baard-Christian Schem. Photo: Silje Katrine Robinson.

Hands-on proposal writing seminar

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Research advisors at the Faculty of Medicine invite you to join us during this hour where we will show examples of successful proposals focusing on the introduction, objectives and various forms of impact. We will show examples of the difference between communication and dissemination and present upcoming deadlines. The department serves lunch so we would appreciate if you can register. Registration deadline is 5 November.

Time: 7 November at 12.00-13.00
Venue: Seminar room 7.1 and 7.2

Pasteurlegatet & Thjøtta’s legat

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Pasteurlegatet and Professor Th. Thjøttas legat will award a grant on the 27th of December this year to young Norwegian scientists who intends to study a topic regarding infectious agents, chemistry or fermentation industry.

The grant is preferably given to young, active and promising researchers, under the doctoral level. Emphasis is placed on documentation of preliminary results and evaluations of their efforts. Priority is given to specific operational and equipment-related needs, rather than traveling, accommodation, general study support and publication expenses.

It is usually not granted support more than twice to the same person. However there is the possibility of exceptions in special cases.

Any award will ordinarily not exceed 15.000, – NOK.

The application must include a short project description with a budget (up to 3 pages) and curriculum vitae (maximum 2 pages).

The application should be submitted by December 1, 2019 to Pasteurlegatet’s secretary Mari Støen, Department of Microbiology, University of Oslo, Oslo University Hospital to email:mari.stoen@medisin.uio.no

See also Pasteurlegatet’s website.

PhD defense – Shahinul Islam

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Shahinul Islam will defend her PhD thesis on Tuesday 05th November 2019

Trial lecture: Tuesday 05th November 2019 at 14.30.
Topic: “The role of non-neutralizing antibodies in protection from influenza”
Place: Auditorium 4, BB-bygget, Jonas Lies vei 91

Public defense: Wednesday 06th November 2019 at 10.15.
Title of dissertation: “Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine (LAIV) Immunization in Children and Adults: Lesson for Development of Universal Influenza Vaccine”
Place:  Auditorium, AHH, Haukelandsveien 28

1st opponent: Professor Anke Huckriede, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
2nd opponent: Researcher Craig Morton, Havforskningsinstituttet
3rd member of the comittee: Professor Silke Appel, Universitetet i Bergen

The defense will be led by professor Einar Thorsen.

New name

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My name is Jonelle Dickow Villar and I am delighted to join the wonderful group of people at K2. My professional experience in Norway has focused on psychiatric nursing.  Last year I was fortunate to complete my master’s degree in the Epigenetics and Multiomics group with Stéphanie Le Hellard and the Martins group with Vidar Steen.  On July 1st this year I returned as a PhD student and will be continuing the work on identifying epigenetic modifications following different environmental exposures, including the antipsychotic drug olanzapine. You can find me on the 2nd floor or by email Jonelle.Villar@uib.no

 

 

New publications

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Here are recent publications with contributions from K2 based on last week’s search on PubMed (and optionally articles that have not been included in previous lists). This time the list includes in total 8 recent publications. The entries appear in the order they were received from NCBI. If you have publications that are not included in this or previous lists, please send the references to Hege F. Berg.

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The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2019

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The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2019

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to cancer researcher William G. Kaelin Jr, physician-scientist Sir Peter Ratcliffe and geneticist Gregg L. Semenza “for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability”. The ability of organisms to respond to changes in oxygen availability is of fundamental importance to life on earth. The prize-winning scientists have revealed how cells sense and respond to oxygen by switching genes on and off by oxygen-sensitive post-translational modification and the subsequent proteasomal degradation of hypoxia inducible factors. Among the applications of their discovery is a better understanding of how the body reacts when oxygen levels drop owing to exercise or stroke, and efforts to manipulate the response to slow the growth of oxygen-hungry cancer tumors.

Interestingly, in 2017 William G. Kaelin wrote in a commentary in Nature that many of the papers that he, Semenza and Ratcliffe wrote leading up to their discoveries “would be considered quaint, preliminary and barely publishable today”. “The goal of a paper seems to have shifted from validating specific conclusions to making the broadest possible assertions,” he argued, calling for a return to a focus on quality over impact.

What can be the causes for today’s inflation of impact and claims? One might be the emphasis funding agencies have on impact and translation of the results. Another can be that technological advances have made it easier to generate large amounts of research data, which can be published as online only supplements. Both these factors can encourage editors and reviewers to ask for extra experiments that can be byproducts, peripheral to the main conclusion or targeted to increase the impact.

In his comment in Nature in 2017, Kaelin concludes that he main question when reviewing a paper should be whether its conclusions are likely to be correct, not whether it would be important if it were true. Food for thought!

Have a nice week end!