Corona outbreak in Norway

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Corona virus

Due to the ongoing corona virus outbreak, we have unfortunately decided to postpone / cancel all our meetings and close our offices for the time being.

On Thursday 12 March 2020, the Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg announced several nation-wide measures (information in Norwegian) in order to contain the coronavirus outbreak in Norway.

In adherence to these new recommendations, all our meetings will be cancelled or postponed until further notice. Please follow the event pages in our event calendar for further updates.

In addition, all Oslo Cancer Cluster employees will be working from home effective immediately and until further notice. If you need to schedule a meeting, all employees are available via telephone or e-mail. Please refer to our Team page for contact details.

Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator will have staff on-site according to a duty roster. We ask all tenants of the Incubator to refrain from inviting any visitors to our facilities for the time being. Please contact the Incubator Team or consult this Interim Guidance if you have any questions or special requirements.

For updates and general guidelines about the corona virus outbreak, please consult Folkehelseinstituttet (for information in Norwegian) and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (for information in English). These include washing your hands regularly, avoiding handshakes and not attending large gatherings.

Special advice for cancer patients. Cancer patients are among those at high risk of serious illness from infection. Cancer Research UK has more information (in English) for cancer patients and their caregivers. The Norwegian Cancer Society has written similar advice (in Norwegian).

Stay safe and take extra good care of each other. This is a Norwegian public health “dugnad” and we must all do what we can to contain the outbreak.

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New member: Hubro Therapeutics

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Image of Oslo Cancer Cluster Innovation Park

In this series, we will be introducing one-by-one the new members that have joined our ecosystem in the last six months. Follow us for a new article next week!

We are proud to present one of the latest additions to our cluster – Hubro Therapeutics.

Hubro Therapeutics is a Norwegian biotech start-up from 2018 that develops immunotherapies against cancer. These treatments aim to trigger the body’s immune system to fight cancer. The company is currently situated in Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator, where they are using the laboratory facilities to develop their treatments.

We talked with Jon Amund Eriksen, founder and CEO of Hubro Therapeutics, to find out a little bit more about the company, their work in cancer research and the reason why they joined Oslo Cancer Cluster.

Could you briefly describe Hubro Therapeutics and the role you take in cancer?

“Hubro Therapeutics AS is a biotech company based on thirty years of R&D experience in the field of immunotherapy of cancer. The company is specialising in developing peptide vaccines targeting shared cancer specific neo-antigens, focusing on design and development of novel peptides and peptide compositions for targeting frameshift mutations in micro-satellite instable (msi) cancers.  The lead candidate vaccine targeting frameshift mutation in TGFbR2 is currently in development for clinical testing in msi-colorectal cancer and potentially msi-gastric cancer,” said Jon Amund Eriksen, founder and CEO.

Why did you join Oslo Cancer Cluster?

“For us, Oslo Cancer Cluster with its incubator and laboratory facilities provides a perfect opportunity to operate in a highly relevant and focused scientific environment as well as to generate our own experimental results without heavy investments,” said Jon Amund Eriksen, founder and CEO.

 

Hubro Therapeutics logo

 

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Oslo Cancer Cluster has participated in a state visit to Jordan to explore opportunities for international collaboration on cancer. From left to right: Steinar Aamdal, Senior Medical Advisor in Ultimovacs, Sigbjørn Smeland, Head of Division at Oslo University Hospital, Amal Al Omari, Chief Scientific Officer at KHCC, Abdelghani Tbakhi, Chairman at Department of Cell Therapy and Applied Genomics at KHCC, Hikmat Abdel-Razeq, Deputy Director at KHCC, Iselin Nybø, Norwegian Minister of Trade and Industry, Ketil Widerberg, General Manager of Oslo Cancer Cluster, Håkon Haugli, CEO of Innovation Norway. Photo: Innovation Norway

State visit to Jordan

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OCC, OUS, Jordan State Visit

Oslo Cancer Cluster visited King Hussein Cancer Centre (KHCC) in Jordan this week to foster international collaboration on cancer.

Oslo Cancer Cluster, Oslo University Hospital and Ultimovacs took part in a state visit to Amman in Jordan this week. The reason behind our involvement was that we want to create more international collaboration on the development of better cancer medicines. We wished to introduce Oslo University Hospital and Ultimovacs to King Hussein Cancer Foundation (KHCF), with regards to a potential collaboration on for example cancer clinical studies and innovative cancer treatments.

Foto: Tom Hansen

Ketil Widerberg, General Manager of Oslo Cancer Cluster, spoke at the industry seminar to discover future partnerships between Norway and Jordan. Photo: Tom Hansen

Ketil Widerberg, General Manager of Oslo Cancer Cluster, spoke at the opening ceremony for the industry seminar, arranged by Innovation Norway. He emphasised that there is reason to hope in the face of cancer as a deadly disease. There are new innovative treatments, which use the immune system to treat cancer, and the use of new technology to analyze health data. If several countries cooperate with each other on data, we can discover new patterns and develop new therapies.

“We believe our countries together should bring the same urgency seen in infectious disease to cancer in the Middle East. Cancer is emerging as a major health issue in the region, and to both develop and give access to innovative treatments for cancer will be crucial in the coming years,” said Ketil Widerberg, General Manager of Oslo Cancer Cluster.

The Norwegian Minister of Trade and Industry Iselin Nybø (to the right) participated in the state visit to Jordan to explore opportunities for industry collaboration. Photo: Camilla Bredde Pettersen

The audience included Harald V, King of Norway, Sonja, Queen of Norway, Abdullah II, King of Jordan, Rania, Queen of Jordan, Hussein, Crown Prince of Jordan, Ine Eriksen Søreide, Norwegian Foreign Minister, Iselin Nybø, Norwegian Minister of Trade, and industry representatives from the Norwegian and Jordanian delegations.

“We need global and internationally-oriented cooperation in cancer care in order to improve the lives of cancer patients. During this State Visit to Jordan, I am pleased to take part at the beginning of new and innovative partnerships between two highly innovative health and research institutions from Norway and Jordan. Jordan has the potential to serve as a hub for international partnerships in cancer care in the Middle East, and I look forward to the continuation of this partnership,” said Minister of Trade and Industry, Iselin Nybø.

During the visit, it was also discussed how Jordan can function as a power centre for better cancer treatments in the Middle East. It can potentially become a base for Norwegian relief to non-communicable diseases with an emphasis on cancer, which is an increasing cause of death in developing countries. Jordan is a relatively stable country with good infrastructure and could become a centre for a new type of Norwegian relief to the region.

A special thank you to Innovation Norway, The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, and all other organising partners involved, for making the visit a success.

Gustav Vik (to the left) from Kjellervolla school and Martin Dimov from Mailand school are collaborating in the laboratory to isolate T cells. Photo: Bente Prestegård.

Research talents learned about immunotherapy

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Gustav Vik from Killevold school and Martin Dimov from Mailand school are enjoying the gatherings arranged by Talentsenteret for realfag: “This is very interesting because we are learning things that are not part of the curriculum and we like to learn about current topics.”

This article was first published in Norwegian on our School Collaboration website.

A group of talented science students from Oslo and Akershus spent two days learning about immunotherapy from former cancer researchers, who are now teachers at Ullern Upper Secondary School and researchers at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Collaboration partners: Oslo Cancer Cluster, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway, Ullern Upper Secondary School, Norsk teknisk museum (The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology) and Oslo Vitensenters Talentsenter i realfag (Talent centre for the natural sciences)

In February, 25 students from 19 different schools in Oslo, which are a part of “Talentsenteret for realfag” (Talent Centre for the Natural Sciences), arrived together to Oslo Cancer Cluster Innovation Park and Ullern Upper Secondary School.

The students were there to participate in a specially tailored two-day programme about medical research and the use of immunotherapy to treat cancer.

The days were spent partly in a classroom to learn about the theory of the immune system and partly in a laboratory to learn how to isolate a type of cells in the immune system called T cells. The method the students learned about is used in modern cell therapies against cancer, which are called CAR T therapies.

Gustav Vik from Kjellervolla School and Martin Dimov from Mailand School are enjoying the gatherings arranged by Talentsenteret for realfag: “This is very interesting because we are learning things that are not part of the ordinary school syllabus and we like to learn about current topics.”

Kaja Flote from Hellerasten school is looking in the microscope to find T cells. She thinks it is exciting to learn more about the depth of the immune system and how it can be changed to fight cancer. Photo: Bente Prestegård.

Kaja Flote from Hellerasten School is looking in the microscope to find T cells. She thinks it is exciting to learn more about the complexity of the immune system and how it can be changed to combat cancer. Photo: Bente Prestegård.

The next day, the students visited the production facilities of Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway, located in Lillestrøm. This is where the company makes Dynabeads (also known as “Ugelstadkulene” in Norwegian) to be used in five billion diagnostic tests every year and in CAR T therapies against cancer.

The Norwegian TV channel TV2 has produced this news segment about Emily Whitehead (link in Norwegian), the first child in the world who received CAR T therapy to treat her cancer, which was deemed incurable. The segment was recorded in 2019, when Emily and her family visited the Norwegian employees at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Oslo. Emily is today 13 years old and has been cancer-free for over eight years.

You can read more about the students’ experience at Thermo Fisher Scientific in this article from 2017, when another group of students from Ullern Upper Secondary School visited the same production facilities.

The researcher Morten Fure from Thermo Fisher tells the students about Dynabeads, also known as “Ugelstadkulene”, CAR T therapy, immunotherapy, and cancer. He has prepared T cell solutions that the students will look at in the microscope. Photo: Bente Prestegård.

The researcher Morten Luhr from Thermo Fisher Scientific tells the students about Dynabeads (also known as “Ugelstadkulene”), CAR T therapy, immunotherapy, and cancer. He has prepared T cell solutions that the students will look at in the microscope. Photo: Bente Prestegård.

The background to the collaboration

“Talentsenteret i realfag” (link in Norwegian) is a customised educational option for students who are especially strong academically. It is for those students who find that the standard school curriculum does not challenge them enough. Just like the school adapts the teaching for students who need extra help in subjects, they adapt the teaching for students who already know a lot and want to learn even more. This is a group of students with a high degree of motivation and a hunger for knowledge that is extraordinary.

The centre employs experts in different subjects to give the students the academic challenges they need. That is why this two-day programme in medicine and immunotherapy was held in February.

The programme was developed by employees from Thermo Fisher Scientific and two teachers from Ullern Upper Secondary School. Fet and Flydal Jenstad both have backgrounds as cancer researchers at the Institute for Cancer Research and the Institute of Cancer Genetics and Informatics respectively. Fet and Flydal Jenstad share the responsibility for the new researcher programme at Ullern Upper Secondary School. Read more about the researcher programme here (link in Norwegian).

Oslo Cancer Cluster and Ullern Upper Secondary School have a school collaboration project since 2009. The goal is to contribute to educating the researchers and entrepreneurs of the future.

Thermo Fisher Scientific is a global biotech company with strong Norwegian roots through the acquisition of the Norwegian biotech Dynal. Thermo Fisher Scientific is one of the members of Oslo Cancer Cluster and actively participates in the school collaboration between Oslo Cancer Cluster and Ullern Upper Secondary School.

Read articles about the other school collaborations Thermo Fisher Scientific have participated in:

 

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