Monthly Archives: January 2020

Workshop announcement

The Respiratory Research group is organising the workshop

Bioinformatic analysis of the airway microbiome: A QIIME2 workshop

16th – 20th of March 2020

This five-day workshop focuses on applied bioinformatics in the field of microbiome data mainly for non-computer scientists using QIIME2. The QIIME2 developers Greg Caporaso and Matthew Ryan Dillon will teach at the workshop.

Participants are required to have some experience with QIIME2 prior to attending the workshop, as no introduction to QIIME2 will be given. Examples used in the workshop will be from the MicroCOPD study, which is data consisting of 16S-rRNA (bacterial) and ITS (fungal) sequencing data from lung samples. Since these samples are low biomass, an emphasis will be on the challenges related to contamination in microbiome analysis.

Participants can bring their own data, but workshop datasets will also be provided. The sessions in the workshop include interactive discussions on several related topics such as different denoising strategies, bioinformatic identification and handling of contaminants, filtering strategies, diversity analyses, differential abundance testing, statistics interpretation, and visualisation and presentation of data.

The spaces are limited, and priority will be given to applicants with relevant background. If you are interested in attending the course, check out the information here:

https://www.digitallifenorway.org/arrangementer/bioinformatic-analysis-of-the-airway-microbiome-a-qiime2-workshop

(Norwegian) Seminarserie Senter for ernæring, torsdag 23. januar

Senter for ernæring har gleden av å invitere til et nytt seminar i vår seminarrekke. Serien tar opp sentrale utfordringer innen ernæring og helse.

Maternal nutrition in a modern world. Are we creating new risks for the baby?

Foreleser: Eleni Papadopoulou, PhD, Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), Oslo

Moderator: Petur Benedikt Juliusson
Tid: Torsdag 23. januar kl. 14.30-15.30
Sted: Auditorium 2, BB-bygget, Jonas Lies vei 91

Eleni Papadopoulou is an epidemiologist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH). Her background is in nutrition and environmental health. She holds a PhD in Environmental Epidemiology (2013) from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, Spain, on the impact of early life exposures to environmental contaminants on fetal growth and endocrine disruption. Her research is focused on the investigation of exposures to environmental contaminants with toxic effects for humans, especially using birth cohorts, as well as the interactions with beneficial nutrients. When coming to NIPH, she first received funding as a Marie Curie post-doctoral fellow to study human dietary exposures to new “emerging” toxicants and currently she is funded by the Norwegian Research Council (“CATCH-UP project”) for a study aiming to identify early life environmental stressors that can affect child growth in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child cohort study.

Abstract
Diet and nutrition are among the major modifiable risk factors for the prevention of Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and more specifically alcohol use, inactivity and unhealthy diet, as well as obesity. In addition, exposure to environmental chemicals have become hot topics due to the link to increase NCD risk. These chemicals are now considered the new threats for human health, mainly because some of them after they enter the human body can mimic the function of our hormones and promote adverse health effects. The periods of pregnancy and early life are identified as critical periods to tackle NCD risk development, as the risk factors are developing long time before the occurrence of the disease, all the way to the pregnancy period and the fetal life. This is no different for environmental chemicals, as the placenta is not protecting the fetus from being exposed to them and the child is born with detectable levels of several environmental chemicals. In this talk, she will focus in the role of maternal diet as a source of exposure to environmental chemicals as well as beneficial nutrients and the associations with child’s physical development and health.

Det blir lett servering.

Velkommen!

http://www.uib.no/ernaring

Disputas – Priyanthi Borgen Gjerde

Priyanthi Borgen Gjerde will defend her PhD thesis on Wednesday 29th January 2020

Trial lecture: Wednesday 29th January 2020 at 09.15.
Topic: “Lipid metabolism in physical health promotion and follow up of treatment response in psychotic disorders”
Place:Auditorium, Armauer Hansens hus, Haukelandsveien 28

Public defense: Wednesday 29th January 2020 at 11.15.
Title of dissertation: “Lipid effects during antipsychotic drug treatment and their relevance for clinical outcomes”
Place: Auditorium, Armauer Hansens hus, Haukelandsveien 28

1st opponent: professor Olli Kampman, Universitetet i Tampere, Finland
2nd opponent: førsteamanuensis Eva Malt, Universitetet i Oslo
3rd member of the comittee: professor II Jørn V. Sagen, Universitetet i Bergen

The defense will be led by professor Francisco Gomez Real

 

 

 

 

This week’s employee – Ketil Grong

Can you tell us something about your daily tasks and work in general?
As fulltime professor at the Dep. of Clinical Science, my job is divided into two main tasks; both research and teaching of medical students. For most of my professional life, I have been working with experimental animal research focusing on cardiac function, blood circulation and metabolism in the cardiac muscle. My job involves being both facilitator, research supervisor and project co-worker in ongoing PhD projects and in current research groups.

Nowadays, I am involved in several animal studies using anaesthetized pigs as experimental model. In these models, we can simulate open cardiac surgery procedures, life-threatening cardiac failure and cardiac arrest. The current studies involve the use of mechanical circulatory support (heart-lung machine, ECMO and Impella pumps) offering temporary cardiac support supplementing or fully substituting the cardiac function in the experimental animal. This kind of equipment is widely used treating patients both worldwide, also here at Haukeland University Hospital. In our experimental models we are studying if and how it is possible to optimize heart function and the circulation in the heart muscle both during and after this type of treatment. Often there will be long days in the core facility Vivarium (the university’s animal facility), performing experiments that could last for up to eight to ten hours. In the Vivarium we have access to advanced evaluation- and recording equipment for studying cardiac function and circulation. In addition, much of my working hours are spent collecting, systemizing and analyzing data from this type of experimental studies. Finally, in collaboration with PhD-candidates and other researchers much time is spent on drafting, correcting and finalizing manuscripts for submission to international scientific journals.

Over the years, I have collaborated with the cardiac surgeons at Haukeland University Hospital. For this reason, I teach medical students on issues related to cardiac and thoracic surgery. Both traditional lectures and bed-side teaching for groups of students are some of my activities. I am also involved in the new exam arrangements (OSCE) and in the academic planning of teaching in the subject “Circulation”. Given this opportunity here in K2Nytt, many of my colleagues and I will strongly argue that too little time in the curriculum and limited teaching resources have been allocated to teaching both in heart disease in general and in cardio-thoracic surgery in the MED2015 curriculum plan. Here, changes are needed.

What do you enjoy working at K2?
I like working together with other people towards some common goals, whether that is good research or good and relevant teaching and training for the medical students. In my situation, I it is enjoyable to collaborate with researchers, technicians and administrative personnel both from K2, from K1, from Haukeland University Hospital and others. In addition, there are many friendly and pleasant people whom I meet and interact with on a daily basis at K2.

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 20 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

Happy New Year!

Christmas and the holiday season at the end of the year are over. It has been a busy time – everything must be fixed and arranged for a few, intense days. However, for most people it has been a precious holiday with time together with the ones we love, as well as an opportunity for contemplation and reflection. It provides motivation and strength to embark on a new year with new opportunities.

It is natural to begin a new year with strategic thinking. In February, the management will conduct a strategy seminar for research group leaders, platform leaders and UGLEs (if the institute council adopts the new scheme). The main theme this year will be communication. Later in the spring we will have a dedicated day focusing on teaching and in the Autumn,  there will be a seminar with HMS work on the agenda. Last year’s K2 seminar (K2 Retreat) at Solstrand for everyone was a success, but the budget situation means that we cannot repeat that for this year. However, we hope to be able to repeat the K2 seminar for everyone at Solstrand in 2021.

(Norwegian) Nye forskningsgrupper og ledere

Hei.
Jeg skriver til dere for å informere om justerte forskningsgrupper og forskningsgruppeledere.

Sammensetningen av forskningsgrupper og forskningsgruppeledere vil og må endre seg i takt med utvikling i fag og personal. Siste året har ledelsen ved K2 derfor arbeidet med en revisjon av dagens situasjon i dialog med de gruppene og lederne som er aktuelle.

En oversikt over justerte forskningsgrupper og forskningsgruppeledere er vedlagt. Oppdatering av informasjon på nettsider vil bli gjennomført fortløpende.

Vi takker grupper, tidligere og nye ledere for en konstruktiv diskusjon. Velkommen til nye ledere og takk for at dere vil stille til denne viktige oppgaven.

Benytter anledningen til å ønske dere alle alt godt for 2020.

På vegne av ledelsen ved K2,

Pål

(Norwegian) Invitasjon til arbeidsseminar for OSKE 6. februar 2020

Minner om arbeidsseminaret for OSKE6 og OSKE12 torsdag 6. februar 2020 på Scandic Bergen City fra kl 09.00 til 16.00. I etterkant av seminaret blir det middag for de som ønsker å være med på det.

Påmeldingslenke her.
Frist for påmelding 14.01.20

Hovedformålet med seminaret er å sørge for å få laget et bredt repertoar av OSKE-oppgaver. Det forventes at alle fagene på medisinstudiet er representert på seminaret. Alle kliniske fag må være representerte.

For informasjon om OSKE som vurderingsform, se ferdighetssenteret sine nettsider.