Monthly Archives: October 2019

The OWLS prepare for landing…

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

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 4^th 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 1^st November for Laboratoriebygget and Friday 22^nd 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.

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

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

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.

(Norwegian) Sigurd Thoresen Workshop 2019: Precision medicine – from hype to clinical relevance

Tid: Mandag 25. november 2019, Kl 10.00 – 17.00.
Sted: Drammensveien 78, Oslo

Påmelding innen 15. november 2019

Program og mer info finner du her.

PhD defense – Shahinul Islam

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

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 1^st 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 2^nd floor or by email Jonelle.Villar@uib.no

New publications

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.

Continue reading →

Deadlines

Dear all,

Please see below the updated links for external funding:

External funding opportunities

Funding opportunities for education

The webpages are updated every second week. New calls are marked as NEW.

Kind regards,

Amra, Ramune and Kaia

PhD comics

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2019

1 Reply

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!

(Norwegian) Veilederseminar for ph.d.-veiledere 27. november på Grand Hotell Terminus.

Det medisinske fakultet inviterer alle som veileder våre ph.d.-kandidater til dagsseminar om forskningsveiledning

Tid: Onsdag 27. november 2019 Kl. 08.30 – 15.45.
Sted: Grand Hotell Terminus

Lenke til påmelding her.
Program her.

Mer informasjon finner du her.

(Norwegian) Stengt Campusbuss de siste 2 turene fredag 25.oktober.

Melding om stengt campusbuss her.

(Norwegian) GERDA MEYER NYQUIST GULBRANSON & GERDT MEYER NYQUIST LEGAT

1 Reply

Legatet tildeler midler til hjerneforskning med fokus på uutforskede medfødte og ervervede sykdommer i nervesystemet, innen fagfeltene nevrologi, psykiatri og psykologi og humanitære formål rettet mot stiftelsen formål. Årlig utdelingsbeløp vil være opp mot en million kroner, og utdelingen vil begrenses til 2-3 prosjekter. For humanitære formål vil utdelingen årlig være i størrelsesorden totalt kr 60.000. Frist 1.12.19.

Mer informasjon her.

(Norwegian) UiBs søknadsdatabase for Fond og legater apner torsdag, 17. oktober 2019

Mer informasjon finnes på UiBs nettside for Fond og legater.

Søknader leveres her.

Søknadsfrist: 1. desember 2019.

Mer informasjon finner du her.

Reminder: Research data breakfast meeting

The University Library invites researchers and other employees to a research data breakfast Tuesday 22nd of October at the Medical Library!

Get breakfast and an introduction to open research data and how to prepare your data for storage and sharing. Sign up today!

08:30-08:40 Breakfast time!
08:40-09:00 Introduction to open research data
09:00-09:00 Break
09:10-09:30 How to prepare your data for sharing

Welcome!

New publications

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 5 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.

Continue reading →

Deadlines

Dear all,

Please see below the updated links for external funding:

External funding opportunities: http://www.uib.no/en/med/112772/external-funding-opportunities

Funding opportunities for education: http://www.uib.no/med/113987/funding-opportunities-education

The webpages are updated every second week. New calls are marked as NEW.

Kind regards,

Amra, Ramune and Kaia

PhD comics

Autumn has arrived

Following our tradition we will also this year have a K2 Junior retreat for PhD fellows and postdocs at K2, this year 4.-5. November in Myrkdalen, Voss. This year’s topic is creative thinking and stress management, and not to forget networking. A big thank you to the organization committee for this interesting program. It is not too late to register, the deadline is today 11.10.

This autumn we also have the possibility to improve our grant-writing skills. The research advisors arrange a seminar on the 7^thNovember, 12:00-13:00 in the seminar room 7.1/2, Laboratory building. We have been so fortunate to show you examples of granted proposals from our researchers and will focus on excellence and impact sections of these. You will see examples of introduction, objectives and various types of impact. The difference between communication and dissemination is not so easy to delineate and we will therefore show examples of both. Finally, we have prepared an overview of upcoming deadlines and will also show examples of prizes and awards you can nominate yourself or others to. The seminar is relevant for everyone who at some point plans to submit a proposal for funding. The department will serve lunch so we kindly ask you to register here.

Talking about awards: the Department of Clinical Science wants to promote candidates for the Kong Olav V cancer research award. Suggestions can be sent to Silke by 4.11.2019.

And last but not least: the faculty’s candidate professor Bruce R. Zetter will be appointed honorary doctor at The Faculty of Medicine, and in connection with this will he give a guest lecture on Monday October 14^that 14:15 (“RNA as a tool for cancer therapy”; Store Auditorium, main building Haukeland University hospital). There will be served tapas afterwards, so please register here.

(Norwegian) Ønsker du/dere en masterstudent?

På masterprogrammet i biomedisin ønsker vi å få en oversikt over aktuelle masteroppgaveprosjekt, og ber interesserte fagmiljø melde inn forslag til prosjekt.

Les mer om studiet her.

Se vedlegg under:

Prosjektbeskrivelse master

Template project description

Regler for veilederskap

(Norwegian) Dagens Medisin om Regine Åsen Jersins prosjekt på insulinresistens

UiB-stipendiat Regine Åsen Jersin presenterte sitt prosjekt om insulinresistens for 18 000 deltakere på kongressen EASD i Barcelona.

Mekanismar i feittvevet kan vera med på å auka sjansen ein person har for å utvikla fedmerelaterte sjukdommar. Studien har funne at redusert transport av aminosyra serine inn i feittceller fører til auka cellestress, meir feittlagring og insulinresistens.

Les mer om saken her.

(Norwegian) Nyhetsbrev fra Dyreavdelingen

Se nyhetsbrev (in english) fra Dyreavdelingen med informasjon om:

Byggearbeid 2019-2020
Tilgang til avdelingen
Forsøksdyrlærekurs
Avl som er unntatt søknadsplikt

(Norwegian) Informasjon om tjenesteportal og felles servicesenter

1 Reply

UiB har anskaffet og planlegger nå innføring av en tjenesteportal (enterprise service management system). Nederlandske TOPdesk er valgt som leverandør i en anskaffelse som er felles for BOTT-universitetene.

Fra 7. oktober vil det ikke være mulig registrere nye saker i Issue-tracker. All oppretting og håndtering av nye saker vil skje i tjenesteportalen (TOPdesk). Issue-tracker vil fortsatt være aktiv etter 7. oktober for å avslutte pågående saker og av arkivhensyn.

For mer informasjon se her.

(Norwegian) UiB-avdelinger endrer navn

Forskningsadministrativ avdeling blir til Forsknings- og innovasjonsavdelingen (FIA), og Studieadministrativ avdeling blir til Studieavdelingen (SA).

Mer informasjon her.

(Norwegian) Endelig nedstengning av Mi Side

Som kjent tok Mitt UiB over for Mi Side som UiBs læringsstøttesystem i 2016. Etter at bruken av Mi side ble faset ut, har systemet fortsatt vært tilgjengelig for lesing og nedlasting av filer for tidligere brukere. Mi Side stenges ned for godt ved nyttår. Etter 31. desember 2019 kan man altså ikke regne med å få tilgang til innholdet.

Hva angår informasjon som ligger der i dag:

Arkivverdig dokumentasjon – som pensumlister, emne- og studieprogrambeskrivelser vil flyttes til Studiekvalitetsbasen. UiB tar ansvar for dette.
Den enkelte ansatte må selv ta ansvar for å laste ned presentasjoner, oppgaver, dokumenter, lenker og annet lærestoff som ikke er bevart annet sted.

Mer info her.

Introduction seminar for new employees

The last introduction seminar for new employees 17th October.

Registration here.

PhD defense – Øystein Fløtten

Øystein Fløtten will defend her PhD thesis on Thursday 17th October 2019

Trial lecture: Thursday 17th October 2019 at 10.30.
Topic: “Behandling av lungekreft – et paradigmeskifte? Hva er de viktigste endringer i behandlingsmuligheter vi har sett de senere årene og hva kan vi vente oss fremover?”
Place: Auditorium 1, BB-bygget, Jonas Lies vei 91

Public defense: Thursday 17th October 2019 at 12.30.
Title of dissertation: “Simplifying treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer- Regimen, route of administration, and patient preferences”
Place: Auditorium 1, BB-bygget, Jonas Lies vei 91

1st opponent: Ph.d. Seppo Langer, Rigshospitalet, København
2nd opponent: Postdoktor Vilde Haakensen, Oslo Universitetssykehus
3rd member of the comittee: Førsteamanuensis Astrid Olsnes Kittang, Universitetet i Bergen

The defense will be led by professor Jon Hardie.

New publications

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 3 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.

Continue reading →