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BiO News
Hosting the new EMBL-affiliated Center
Hanne Dirdal
10th October 2007
A new research center for molecular medicine, the Center for Molecular Medicine Norway, will be located at the Oslo Innovation Center (Forsknigsparken). The new Center is part of a Nordic partnership with EMBL in the field of molecular medicine. The two other partners are the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Helsinki and the Laboratory for Molecular Infection Medicine in Umeå.
The Administrative director of EMBL, Ian Mattaj, is the leader of the Nordic steering committee. He says that each of the three partners has a long history of research on specific areas that are relevant to molecular medicine and that every partner contributes with a unique combination of competence, techniques and equipment.
The Biotechnology Center of Oslo will host the EMBL node together with the Center for Molecular Biology and Neuroscience (CMBN). Drs. Kjetil Taskén, Ole Petter Ottersen and Stefan Krauss have been identified as the three founding members of the center. They have worked with the University of Oslo to establish the center and will be key in the new Center's research profile. They all have research groups that will contribute to the startup of the new Center for Molecular Medicine. In addition, there are plans to recruit five new groups to the Center.
With funding for five new groups in molecular medicine and translational research forming a larger research environment and with the EMBL Partnership, we hope to attract top candidates for Group Leader positions in the center, says Kjetil Taskén who emphasizes how important the EMBL Partnership will be for Norwegian Molecular Medicine research. The EMBL Center will take advantage of the molecular medicine competence both at UiO and at the University hospitals as well as the co-localization with the Biotechnology Center of Oslo and the Center for Molecular Biology and Neuroscience.
The fact that the new Center will be hosted by the Biotechnology Center of Oslo means that we will contribute with administrative support, infrastructure and technology and that the EMBL Center can take advantage of investments that have already been made at the University. In addition, the Biotechnology Center already has experience with that model of International recruiting, exchange of researchers and peer review that the three EMBL centers will apply.
The Center for Molecular Medicine Norway will be an important research resource that will have a national mandate and function in the build up of translational research, says the leader of the Biotechnology Center of Oslo, Kjetil Taskén.
The beat goes on with AKAP18
A protein, known as AKAP18, could help the heart to beat faster in response to adrenaline or noradrenaline, according to a study published online this week in EMBO reports. Professor Kjetil Taskén is head of the group now publishing in prestigious EMBO Reports.
The protein has a crucial role in correctly targeting protein kinase A (PKA) to a molecular complex that helps control the rate and strength of heart muscle contractions. This complex regulates the uptake of calcium into intracellular stores in the heart, allowing it to relax and prepare for its next contraction. PKA must be present for the complex to be activated and AKAP18 makes sure that it gets there.
Coronary artery disease leading to heart attacks, which can be acutely fatal or can induce heart failure resulting in death, is the biggest killer of men in the United States of America and Europe. With 10 million new cases of heart failure every year, approximately 30% of patients respond poorly to current treatments, with an ultimately fatal outcome. New drugs to improve survival from post-infarction heart failure are desperately needed. AKAP18 may prove to be an effective novel target in the fight to live beyond this deadly event.
Kjetil Taskén and co-workers hope that AKAP18 can be used as a potential drug target to improve the survival rate of patients with heart failure following heart-attacks, or sufferers of heritable heart disease. By targeting AKAP18, the team aims to specifically affect PKA and its regulatory complex when it is over-activated and help the heart to continue to function effectively.
Read the EMBO report
Farrukh A. Chaudhry is given status as Young
Excellent Scientists (YFF)
The Norwegian
Research Council has today published who they have given status as Young
Excellent Scientists (YFF) and have selected 20 recipients of these generous
grants that run for four years.
Former BiO postdoc
Jorrit Enserink is also granted YFF status at the National
Hospital.
Article by researcher at BiO published
in Molecular Cell
Birgitte Lygren at the Biotechnology Centre of Oslo (BiO) is one of two shared first
authors of an article published in Molecular Cell on November 3rd.
The article
springs out of research collaboration between three laboratories: BiO, Institute of Cancer Research in England and Howard
Hughes Medical Institute at Oregon Health and Science University in the US. During Birgitte
Lygren’s stay in the laboratory of Dr.
John Scott in Oregon, she was
brought into contact with David Barford’s group at the Institute of Cancer
Research in England and
Matthew Gold, the other first author. In Oslo,
Birgitte is a member of the research group of Professor Kjetil
Taskén at BiO and she is an employee of
the Norwegian Cancer Society.
Using a peptide
screening approach, the researchers behind the article have developed
SuperAKAP-IS, a peptide that is 10,000-fold more selective for the RII
isoform relative to RI and that can be used to assess the impact of PKA
isoform-selective anchoring on cAMP-responsive events inside cells.
The transfer
of the peptide array technology
is also an important result of this research collaboration.
Read
more
http://www.molecule.org/
http://www.jbc.org/
Farrukh
A. Chaudhry ved BiO tildelt Jahrepris for yngre forskere
Anders Jahres pris for yngre forskere på 400 000 kroner deles mellom
professor Farrukh Abbas Chaudhry ved Bioteknologisenteret, Universitetet i Oslo,
og professor Poul Nissen ved Universitetet i Århus.
Anders Jahres store medisinske pris for 2006 tildeles
professor Jon Storm-Mathisen fra Universitetet i Oslo for hans banebrytende
forskning på signalstoffer i hjernen. Prisen er på én million kroner.
– Ved Bioteknologisenteret i Oslo
er vi svært stolte av at den ene halvparten av Anders Jahres pris for yngre
forskere for 2006 går til professor Farrukh Abbas Chaudhry som er
gruppeleder hos oss, sier professor Kjetil Taskén. – Det er interessant og
uvanlig at komiteen har valgt å gi priser både til Storm-Mathisen og Chaudhry
samtidig. Farrukh Chaudhry er elev av Jon Storm-Mathisen og nå får de altså
prisen for hver sine oppdagelser som kommer i serie. Dermed får man fram betydningen av
kontinuitet og å skape et miljø rundt seg, sier senterleder Taskén som selv
fikk Jahreprisen for yngre forskere i 2002.
Farrukh Chaudhry har bidratt
sterkt til identifikasjonen av flere transportproteiner for glutamat og
glutamin. Hans gruppe forsker på om en familie av aminosyretransportører
spiller en rolle også for sykdommer utenfor hjernen, som for eksempel kronisk
metabolsk acidose og til og med kreft.
Se også http://www.biotek.uio.no/research_groups/chaudry_group.html
Bioteknologisenteret i NBS-nytt nr. 3 2006
Bioteknologisenteret får fyldig omtale i siste nummer av NBS-nytt, les mer: NBS-nytt
Prestisjepublisering for genforsker
Torkel
Vang, forsker i gruppen til Bioteknologisenterets leder, professor Kjetil
Taskén, publiserer nå sin forskning i det prestisjetunge
tidsskriftet Nature Genetics. En norsk førsteforfatter har Nature
Genetics bare hatt et par ganger i løpet av sin tiårige
historie.
Torkel Vang arbeider for tiden som postdoc ved Burnham
Institute i San Diego, finansiert av Kreftforeningen. Han forsker på et
enzym, Lyp, som holder celledelingen i sjakk i immunsystemet.
Vang viser at
en mutasjon i Lyp gir for mye Lyp aktivitet og at dette fører til
autoimmune sykdommer. Jakten på en medisin er allerede i gang.
Det er
flere sykdommer som kan knyttes opp mot Lyp: Diabetes type 1, som er den typen
som rammer barn og unge, leddgikt (reumatoid artritt), lupus, Addisons sykdom
(binyrebarksvikt), vitiligo (tap av pigment i huden), og sykdommer i
skjoldbruskkjertelen.
T-celler og Lyp
T-celler er en viktig
del av vårt immunsystem når det gjelder beskyttelse mot fremmede
stoffer som for eksempel virus, bakterier og parasitter. Men mens T-cellene
bekjemper fremmedstoffer, må de samtidig respektere kroppens egne
molekyler slik at disse ikke angripes. Er T-cellenes aktivitet for lav, rammes
man av infeksjoner. Ved for høy aktivitet kan kroppens egne molekyler
bli angrepet og vi får autoimmune sykdommer som for eksempel diabetes
type 1, leddgikt og lavt stoffskifte (hypotyreose).
I 2004 ble det kjent at
en mutasjon i genet for Lyp er assosiert med diabetes type 1 og andre
autoimmune sykdommer. Basert på studier av Lyp-enzymet i mus gikk man ut
fra at det var redusert aktivitet i den mutante formen av Lyp. Dermed skulle
det være lettere å aktivere T-cellene fra pasienter som hadde denne
genforandringen.
Nå har Torkel Vang funnet at dette ikke stemmer. Det
er faktisk motsatt. Den endrede, mutante, formen av Lyp er mer aktiv, ikke
mindre. Når den settes inn i T-celler, blir T-cellene hemmet i sitt
arbeid med å bekjempe fremmedstoffer. Dessuten viser det seg at Lyp hos
mus og mennesker er ganske forskjellige, slik at funn hos mus ikke direkte kan
overføres til mennesker.
Arbeidet med å forstå hvorfor
Lyp både kan regulere celledeling av blodceller og kontrollere autoimmun
sykdom fortsetter, sier Vang. Imens har jakten på Lyp-hemmere allerede
startet siden man behandlingsmessig kan tenke seg at pasienter med autoimmune
sykdommer kan dra nytte av en medisin som hemmer aktiviteten av Lyp.
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Om tidsskriftet
Nature Genetics har en
såkalt ”Impact factor” på 25, dvs på nivå med
de aller beste tidsskriftene som Cell og Science (bak Nature), det er
altså et av verdens 4-5 beste i biomedisin. I løpet av de ti
årene Nature Genetics har eksistert, har tidsskriftet ikke hatt flere enn
rundt tretti artikler med norske medforfattere og bare et par artikler som har
hatt en norsk førsteforfatter slik Kreftforeningens forsker Torkel Vang
er på denne artikkelen. Artikkelen til Torkel Vang blir publisert i
desemberutgaven av Nature Genetics, men er tilgjengelig på deres
web-sider fra den 6. november.
BiO-researcher
portrayed in Science
Farrukh Chaudhry, group leader at
the Biotechnology Centre of Oslo, is one of the profiles in the October issue
of Science (www.sciencemag.org)
Norway:A Neuroscientist Making
Connections
Norwegian neuroscience researcher Farrukh A. Chaudhry
trained as a medical doctor, but his heart has always been in basic science. In
August this year, the 36-year-old Chaudhry began an appointment as a group
leader at the Biotechnology Centre in Oslo. The position is funded for 10
years. Chaudhry will investigate whether the family of amino acid transporters
he discovered while at UCSF may play a role outside the synapse, perhaps in
non-neurological diseases such as chronic metabolic acidosis or even cancer.
Click here to read more
Farrukh
Chaudhry new group leader at BiO
Dr. Farrukh A. Chaudhry has
started his work as new group leader. Chaudhry is a medical doctor from the
University of Oslo (UiO) (1996) and did his PhD-thesis on amino acid
transporters at synapses (2002). He has done detailed immunogold electron
microscopical investigations of transporter proteins in the central nervous
system (among others the glutamate transporters) in the laboratory of Professor
Jon Storm-Mathisen at the Anatomical Institute, UiO. Chaudhry spent three years
in the group of Dr. Edwards at the University of California San Francisco
(UCSF) where he started his work on identifying and characterizing several
members of a family of amino acid transporters. He is a recipient of
"karrierestipend" (career stipend) from the Norwegian Research council
(2001-2006) which allowed him to establish his own group at the Anatomical
Institute, UiO. The new group to be headed by Dr. Farrukh A. Chaudhry will
study molecular mechanisms involved in the regulation of the amino acid
transporters at physiological conditions and during pathology (e.g.
malignancies). He will also study their role in signal
transduction.
Dr. Bernd
Thiede is building a new group at BiO
Dr. Bernd Thiede has started
his job as group leader at BiO. Thiede has been responsible for proteomics at
the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin . He has almost ten
years of experience in proteomics and mass spectrometry. Tiede has a M.sc. in
signaltransduction (1992) and a degree in protein chemistry from
Max-Delbück Centre for Molecular Medicine in Berlin (Dr. Wittman-Liebold)
in 1997. Thiede’s position as a team leader for proteomics of apoptosis at
the Max-Planck-Institute was based on his post-doc at the same institute.
During the post-doc, he built up a small group to study T cell apoptosis by
proteome analysis. A major project includeded the coordination of five groups
for the proteome analysis of neuronal apoptosis using and developing techniques
including chromatography, electrophoresis, mass spectrometry and
bioinformatics. The new group to be headed by Dr. Bernd Thiede will study death
signalling and apoptosis.
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