Monthly Archives: June 2020

HAPPY SUMMER VACATION!

As of this writing, the university has just reopened after it was closed in emergency on March 12. Welcome back, but remember to keep your distance and practice the rules of infection carefully. The covid-19 disease is under control in Norway, but it can flare up again, and we do not want a new shutdown. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for all your constructive efforts during the shutdown. It had major consequences for our everyday activities, especially when it comes to experimental research and teaching. Thanks for the positive attitude and constructive measures. We have also learned a lot, and digital meetings will probably be frequently used in the future.

We have recently submitted a budget proposal for 2021. This year too, we suggest an ambitious budget that takes into account the challenges we see in the coming year in terms of education, research, innovation and dissemination. The economy group are thanked for their solid work on the budget.

We just had a kick-off meeting for the new UGLEs in connection with a new teaching structure at K2. I perceived the new UGLEs as interested and engaged with many relevant questions and comments. I think this will be great. Thanks to everyone for a constructive process.

After an unusually cold spring, we have finally got to taste the heat. We are now preparing for the summer holidays. Spring has for most people been a busy time with applications, OSKE and all the endings at the end of the semester. Hence, it will be good to have a few weeks off to do completely different things. It is important to charge the batteries so that we can start the autumn with new energy and work desire. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their great efforts this semester. Have a great summer vacation!

Norwegian: Pedagogisk kompetanseheving – høst 2020

Vi forbereder nå høstsemesteret, og Enhet for læring har et variert tilbud for våre ansatte som ønsker å lære mer om undervisning, veiledning og pedagogikk.

Kurset PHDPED – Introduction to teaching and learning in Higher Education Health Sciences for Phd and Post doctors (5 ects)

https://www.uib.no/en/course/PHDPED900

Seminarrekken Pedagogisk Påfyll vil i høst ha fokus på digital undervisning og vil være i et digitalt format:  

  • 23/9 TBL goes digital v/Olav Tenstad
  • 14/10 Downsize and digitalize your lecture
  • 11/11 Flipp your classroom – kombinasjoner av synkron og asynkron undervisning
  • 9/12 Læringsstier i MittUiB v/Harald Wiker

Alle dager fra kl. 15-16. Mer info og påmelding via nettsiden: https://www.uib.no/med/enhetforlæring/136678/pedagogisk-påfyll-høsten-2020

Workshop i pedagogiske mapper (Zoom): 6/8 (kl. 09:15-12:00)

Det vil settes opp flere workshops ila høsten. Følg med på våre nettsider https://www.uib.no/med/enhetforlæring

Som del av vår satsing på ansatte i bistilling har vi tre nye kurstilbud denne høsten, alle tellende som del av utdanningsfaglig kompetanse:

  1. Journal Club – medisinsk og helsefaglig pedagogisk forskning Oppstart 18/9 (kl. 12-15)
  2. Praksisveiledning: 31/8 (kl. 09:15-16:00) + 21/9 (kl. 09:15-12:30)
  3. Kurs i formidling og presentasjonsteknikk: 20/10 (kl. 09:15-16:00)

Mer info her: https://www.uib.no/med/enhetforlæring/135895/aktiviteter-ved-enhet-læring-høsten-2020

Course: “Entrepreneurship in healthcare”

The School of Health Innovation has now opened Course 2: “Entrepreneurship in healthcare” that will be arranged this autumn – Application deadline 1st July.

The course is designed for medical, healthcare and life science researchers such as PhDs and postdocs/researchers. In this course the attendees will get experience from Scandinavia´s most advanced support system for healthcare entrepreneurs, combining academic learning, practical cases from healthcare companies, 1-1 mentorship with the aim of further developing a research idea into commercialization, and how to develop a new service for patients in a clinical setting.

The overall aim of this course is that the researcher or clinician will learn from experienced life science entrepreneurs or business development executives, how to develop a research idea into business and to develop a business plan (BI – Norwegian Business School).

Do you know any PhD or a postdoc/researcher that would like to attend, please encourage this person to apply for admission. 

https://www.med.uio.no/english/research/school-of-health-innovation/courses/entrepreneurship-in-healthcare.html

There is no course fee.

Norwegian: Status som merittert underviser – utlysning 2020

Som et ledd i arbeidet for studiekvalitet har fakultetsstyret opprettet en meritteringsordning for fremragende undervisere ved Det medisinske fakultet.

Fakultetet inviterer med dette sine undervisere til å søke om å bli tildelt merittert undervisningsstatus. Merittert status tildeles vitenskapelig ansatte som har vist betydningsfull innsats for å sikre utdanningskvalitet i bred forstand.

Søknadsfrist er 1. september 2020.

For mer informasjon om meritteringsordningen og søknadskravene se: Utlysning meritteringsordning 2020 og Krav til søknad om status som merittert underviser

This week`s employee – Anette Susanne Bøe Wolff

What do I work with?
My education is molecular biology, and I completed my PhD degree in 2005. After that, I have had many different roles and projects in research group G1 (Endocrine Medicine). I like it best “in the lab” but, unfortunately, I do not have so much time anymore for that. I still try to do lab tasks myself, especially when introducing and optimizing new methods, and I try to perform some lab task each week. I spend most of my time to supervise master’s, PhD students, and postdocs, and to coordinate and discuss upcoming and ongoing projects and results with my internal colleagues and external partners. Of course, applications, articles, reports, etc. must also be written. A lot of time is spent on zoom meetings, both inside and outside corona time.
My research “in a large perspective” focuses on finding causal mechanisms for endocrine autoimmunity, and to translate this knowledge to improved therapy for patients with these diseases. In more detail, I lead two projects. The aim of the first project is to identify monogenic autoimmune diseases by genome sequencing of families with accumulation of endocrine autoimmunity, and the aims of the second is to “single cell” analyse regulatory T cells in patients with autoimmune diseases to investigate how we can use such cells as targets or tools for therapy. In both projects, collaboration between different professions is required; physicians to recruit patients, molecular biologists to perform laboratory experiments, and bioinformatics and geneticists to help get results out of the “big data” research. After that, collaboration with the biologists again is required to get “meaning out of the results”. These are demanding, but exciting, processes! I learn new things every day!
Techniques we carry out in our lab are standard molecular biology and immunology such as cell culture, PCR, real-time PCR, ELISA, various other immunoassays etc. We collaborate with the core facilities at UiB for flow cytometry, Cytof and RNA sequencing, and with external partners for e.g. genome sequencing and genome wide association (GWAS) experiments.

Why do I like working at K2?
I often think that I am super-lucky who get to work with something that is exciting, and that challenges me every day. K2 is an institution that, both physically and professionally, is close to Haukeland University Hospital. Genes and the immune system have fascinated me since I “knew that they existed”, and being allowed to dig into this because we are so closely linked to the medical department, and that we have access to methodology that are needed, is very awarding. We have many different competences in the research group, and collaboration internally is important both socially and professionally. The doctors in the group often work clinically at the same time. This means that we can find new problems and hypotheses together with them, which we can try to solve in the laboratory, and the path is then short to turn to the patients again with new knowledge. From bed-to bench-and back again. The fact that we have a registry and biobank, that we can utilize as material for research, is a fantastic resource.
K2 and the lab block have very nice laboratory facilities, and the way is short to my internal partners in other research groups (special medical genetics) and the core facilities. The core facilities are truly something we should strive for so that we avoid researchers sitting in each corner with his/her private/own machine and who spend time learning the same advanced techniques.
Working at K2 also gives me the opportunity to supervise students at various levels, something I like very well. It challenges me, and makes me find things I do not know, that I have to learn. That leads to personal and scientific development.
So that is why I like to work here!

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 6 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 Oda Barth Vedøy.

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Ready for take-off

The new structure with teaching groups and teaching group leaders – UGLE – was adopted in January and is effectuated as of 1st August. Teaching is an important task for K2. We contribute heavily to teaching in the study programs for particular medicine, but also pharmacy, dentistry, nutrition and other educations. We hope that the new organization will highlight teaching as part of our mission in line with research, and contribute to a better overview of our teaching resources.

Despite a new name, the content is not radically new: this structure is largely a formalization of an informal, existing structure. We have partially “stolen” the UGLE name and structure from IGS, who has worked extensively with the development of its teaching and brought home several awards in pedagogy as a result. Maybe we can give them stronger competition?

The purpose of the organization is to establish a clear contact person for questions and clarifications related to teaching in the department’s disciplines (teaching groups). UGLE, head of a teaching group, has delegated responsibility to distribute teaching among the members of its teaching group and acts as contact person in the work of exam planning. In addition, UGLE is the central link between the teaching group and the semester boards, clinical departments and department management. It is right and important that there is a person who is close to and knows the academic environment that ensures that the teaching tasks are distributed in the best possible way, so that our students benefit accordingly.

The responsibility as a UGLE provides a good opportunity to influence the form and content of the teaching. Equally important is the good cooperation in the teaching groups between everyone who contributes to the teaching, so that together we can work fruitfully to renew, coordinate and improve the teaching.

I would like to extend a warm thanks to our recently departing head of education, Jone Trovik, who put a lot of effort into putting the UGLE structure in place. I am fortunate to be able to take over the baton as head of teaching as we slip into the “charm stage” – it will be exciting when we now words into action together! To get started, all UGLE are invited to a kick-off seminar on Tuesday 16 June.

Furthermore, I would like to mention that the faculty is now announcing the merit scheme for outstanding educators, see separate case in K2Nytt – will K2 have its first “Outstanding educator”?

Norwegian: Status som merittert underviser – utlysning 2020

Som et ledd i arbeidet for studiekvalitet har fakultetsstyret opprettet en meritteringsordning for fremragende undervisere ved Det medisinske fakultet.

Fakultetet inviterer med dette sine undervisere til å søke om å bli tildelt merittert undervisningsstatus. Merittert status tildeles vitenskapelig ansatte som har vist betydningsfull innsats for å sikre utdanningskvalitet i bred forstand.

Søknadsfrist er 1. september 2020.

For mer informasjon om meritteringsordningen og søknadskravene se: Utlysning meritteringsordning 2020 og Krav til søknad om status som merittert underviser

PhD defense – Bente Silnes Tandberg

Bente Silnes Tandberg  will defend her PhD thesis on Wednesday 17th June 2020

Trial lecture: Wednesday 17th June 2020 at 10.15

Topic: «Premature barn – kjønnsforskjeller i sykelighet, vekst og ernæring»

Place: https://tinyurl.com/BenteSilnesTandberg

Public defense: Wednesday 17th June 2020 at 12.15

Title of dissertation: «Impact of Single-Family Room design on very preterm infants and their parents»

Place: https://tinyurl.com/BenteSilnesTandberg

1st opponent: Professor Claus Klingenberg, UiT Norges arktiske universitet

2nd opponent: Ph.d. Ylva Thernström Blomqvist, Akademiska Sjukhuset, Sverige

3rd member of the committee: Førsteamanuensis Elham Baghestan, Universitetet i Bergen

The defense will be led by professor Thomas Halvorsen

PhD defense – Ragnhild Haugse

Ragnhild Haugse will defend her PhD thesis on Wednesday 17th June 2020

Trial lecture: Wednesday 17th June 2020 at 13.15

Topic: «Molecular mechanisms of sonoporation in cancer therapy. Optimization of sonoporation parameters and investigations of intracellular signalling»

Place: https://tinyurl.com/RagnhildHaugse

Public defense: Wednesday 17th June 2020 at 15.15

Title of dissertation: «Endothelial cell signaling and sonoporation»

Place: https://tinyurl.com/RagnhildHaugse

1st opponent: Professor Christy K. Holland, University of Cincinnati, USA

2nd opponent: Professor Alfred Yu, University of Waterloo, Canada

3rd member of the committee: Professor Trygve Hausken, Universitetet i Bergen

The defense will be led by professor Silke Appel

This week`s employee – Kristin Moberg Aakre

What you’re working on?
I am a specialist in medical biochemistry and work in a position as chief physician at the Hormone Laboratory at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Pharmacology and as assistant associate professor at K2. This is a good combination, as there are still interesting issues in the senior doctor’s job that I can develop in the field of the investigation. In recent years, my focus has been on heart markers especially. how we can use these for fast, but at the same time safe, diagnostics of acute coronary syndrome. Together with good colleagues, I am responsible for conducting two major clinical trials that investigate this, these are funded by Helse-Bergen, the Cooperation Body in Helse-Vest and trond mohn foundation. I also work with the prognostic value of heart markers. In addition, I am working to determine the biological variation of biomarkers in various national and international collaborative projects.
An example of the synergy effect in the combined position is that the mystified of the work in the laboratory is designed to ensure good quality. The issues often have to be suppressed in the event of larger or smaller attempts and we try to put things up so systematically that we can publish the results afterwards. We can and collect anonymised laboratory data from Haukeland University Hospital, right, to investigate the effect of analysis quality on patient care.
In addition to researching student education for medical biochemistry and is a legal tenant for phire PhD student and a research line student.

What do you like to work with at k2?
I really like working at K2 because through research I get a lot of ability to develop myself professionally. I feel like I’m learning enough new and having something to reach for, it gives me energy. The investigation also allows me to meet colleagues at various stages of my career, from students to professors, and at many different institutions. Working together across is very instructive. The work at K2 also allows me to access courses in education and straight renting, which is also developed beyond the purely academic. Through teaching, I meet talented and curious students, and it is nice to be able to help them gain knowledge of laboratory analyzer and laboratory life. It is very good to work with straight hire and so colleagues grow and develop academic self-accommodations.
It is nice to work at K2, I experience my colleagues both in knowledge and administrative positions as knowledgeable, helpable and dedicated, which makes it always nice to go to work.

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 11 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 Oda Barth Vedøy.

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The Department of Pediatrics and Adolescents is 70 years!

This year, it is 70 years since the children got their own clinic at Haukeland University Hospital, and yesterday this was highlighted at the hospital. The Department of Pediatrics was a liberation gift from Sweden after the war. When the building was inaugurated by Crown Princess Märta on May 31, 1950, it was the first and largest children’s clinic in the country. Bergen has the second largest children’s clinic in Norway. The Department accepts annually around 4,000 patients aged 0 to 18. The original building was demolished two years ago, and by 2023 the Glass Blocks will be finished. Meanwhile, the Pediatrics and Adolescents is located in Marie Joys’ House.

Did you know that the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescents has always been closely linked to the University of Bergen, in fact before any of these two institutions were built? Before the University of Bergen was established, it was important with special departments to “sell” the idea of a university. Pioneers like Dr. med. Carl August Looft and Consultant Physician Nils Backer-Grøndahl were driving forces for plans for both a children’s clinic and a medical faculty in Bergen. The gift from Sweden with the establishment of a children’s clinic after the war became an important piece in the final phase of the fight for a university in Bergen that was finally adopted by Stortinget in 1946.

The first leader of the Department of Pediatrics was Professor Alfred Sundal, who was a professorship candidate upon accession and thus already an important professional person for developing the university clinic at Haukeland.

In the 1960s, Norway’s first chromosome laboratory was established at the Department of Pediatrics by Consultant Physician Ole K. Harlem. Professor Dagfinn Aarskog, who in 1970 took over the management of the Department of Pediatrics after Sundal, – much after a research stay at Johns Hopkins University in the United States – got a great interest in genetics and then headed the chromosome laboratory for many years. He saw early the enormous potential in molecular genetics and became a key driver for the establishment of the Department of Medical Genetics and initiator of the establishment of the Center for Clinical Molecular Medicine.

The research laboratory at the Department of Pediatrics was further developed by Aarskog, Professor Lage Aksnes and later the diabetes group to become a powerful research environment with experimental and clinical research with clear clinical utility – modern translational research. An experimental laboratory physically inside a clinical ward was unusual and very innovative.

In addition, under the leadership of professors Robert Bjerknes and Britt Skadberg, powerful research environments in heart and lung research were established as well as the follow-up of extremely premature children. These groups have been very important to the environment in the university part of stage 1 of the new Children and Youth Center in the Glass Blocks.

The Department of Pediatrics have not only incubated premature children – but also pediatricians – to pursue an academic career. In addition to those mentioned, former and current professors Per Erik Waaler, Oddmund Søvik, Gjermund Fluge, Trond Markestad, Gottfried Greve, Kristian Sommerfelt, Ansgar Berg, Thomas Halvorsen, Helge Ræder and the undersigned have been central to research, teaching, and not at least research management at the Department of Clinical Science, the Faculty of Medicine, and the University of Bergen centrally.

What will be the next 70 years of challenges and opportunities? Larger student numbers, more individual, and more digitized teaching are likely to be central and are already underway. In research, large and real-world data sets, bioinformatics, and precision medicine are likely to be very important. User participation is expected to be part of the research, and the demand for relevance and benefit is probably increasing, while basic research will have an increased focus. And women! Of the 18 mentioned above, only one is female. Here, we have a job to do the next years!

As most people know, I am a pediatrician and have had the privilege of receiving my education at the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescents, and later experienced a stimulating environment for a university career up to the position of Professor and Head of the Center for Diabetes Research. I would like to thank you personally for this.

Finally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescents´ leadership and the around 300 staff for being so positive about integrating the university’s core areas of research and teaching, innovation and communication with clinical practice. Access to clinical records and samples, and clinical questions, are crucial for our research. Education of health professionals is our main task. I am proud and delighted with the Department of Pediatrics and Adolescents, and believe that together we can make a difference – for our children – when it comes to translational and clinical research, and the education of top health and university staff.

Without the children´s clinic, no university – and without the university, no children’s university clinic.

Happy Birthday!

Open call for NCMM Associate Investigators

NCMM has entered its third 5-year period and we would like to expand the current network of NCMM Associate Investigators. A new call for both senior and more early-career Associate Investigators has now been opened: https://www.med.uio.no/ncmm/english/news-and-events/news/2020/open-call-for-ncmm-associate-investigators-.html

The application deadline is August 25.

For more information: AI call 2020

PhD defense – Lene Kristin Brekke

Lene Kristin Brekke will defend her PhD thesis on Thursday 11th June 2020

Trial lecture: Thursday 11th June 2020 at 10.15

Topic: «Fordeler og ulemper med ulike metoder for diagnostikk av kjempecellearteritt»

Place: https://tinyurl.com/LeneKristinBrekke

Public defense: Thursday 11th June 2020 at 12.15

Title of dissertation: «Giant Cell Arteritis in Western Norway 1972-2012. Incidence, Survival, Risk of Cancer and Causes of Death»

Place: https://tinyurl.com/LeneKristinBrekke

1st opponent: Professor II Carl Turesson, Lunds Universitet, Sverige

2nd opponent: Professor Anne-Sofie Furberg, UiT Norges arktiske universitet, Tromsø

3rd member of the committee: Professor Anne Kjersti Daltveit, Universitetet i Bergen

The defense will be led by professor Ola Myklebost

This week`s employee – Kristin Greve Isdahl Mohn

I work as an associate professor at the Influenza Center, K2. In addition to teaching medicine and master students, we research colleagues and patients admitted to the hospital. We research the immune system and on immunological responses after both vaccination and infection with influenza viruses. We work with many different influenza viruses and have participated in various clinical trials with influenza vaccines on adults, children and health workers. The goal is to be able to contribute to knowledge in immunology in order to create better vaccines in the future. The long-term goal is a universal flu vaccine, a “one shot fix all.” But it’s probably even far ahead. My career at the influenza center started 10 years ago, during the swine flu pandemic in 2009. Then we collected samples from hospitalized patients in the infection ward to try to understand why some people get so much sicker than others. Now we’re researching the coronavirus, and that’s the second pandemic I’m allowed to be a part of. We are studying immunological responses in both staff and patients to see if we develop immunity to the new virus. Researching a viral pandemic is very exciting, demanding and unpredictable. Everything has to happen fast and it requires a lot of teamwork. Here at the Influenza Center we have a fantastic team. We have a widespread international cooperation, and it has provided many exciting discussions and new perspectives. Combining the position at K2 with clinical work as a doctor at the hospital is the perfect combination for me, and I love it.

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 4 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 Oda Barth Vedøy.

Continue reading