UiO:Life Science initiative to be continued
The University of Oslo's board has decided that the initiative UiO:Life Science will be continued for a new five-year period.
- We are pleased that the University Board has decided to continue the initiative. In the next period, we will continue our efforts to strengthen interdisciplinary research, education and innovation in the life sciences. The goal is to ensure that UiO's initiative to promote convergence in research and innovation will provide clear added value. In the longer term, the initiative will contribute to securing and strengthening UiO's national and international competitiveness in the life sciences, says UiO:Life Science' Board Chair Øyvind Fylling-Jensen.
Life sciences researchers at UiO and the pandemics
Many life science researchers at UiO are 
heavily involved in contributing to solving the coronavirus situation in different ways. Gunnveig Grødeland in UiO:Life Sciences innovation programme SPARK Norway is involved in developing new approaches vaccines against viruses in general. The statistician Arnoldo Frigessi in the UiO:Life Science convergence environment Personalised cancer therapy (PERCATHE), is involved in predicting for the spread of the disease using mobile data. Immunologist Fridtjof Lund-Johansen in the UiO:Life Science convergence environment ImmunoLingo and his colleagues at UiO and OUS are working on methods to find out who have already had the infection. All of them are also contributing to communicating knowledge about the corona virus in different media. Fridtjof Lund-Johansen has written in Aftenposten about the importance of testing for coronavirus antibodies to find out who have already had the coronavirus infection. Read the article on aftenposten.no (in Norwegian)
News
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Professor Marianne Hiorth is leading the SPARK-project Development of a new product to relieve the symptoms of dry mouth has arrived at a cross road Forskarane må velja om produktet deira er kosmetikk eller legemiddel (link to Titan, in Norwegian)
- SPARKee Aleksandra Dukic receives Life Sciences Scientists' Choice Award for best Video of the year. See the video A novel target to inhibit glioblastoma invasion
- Read about the research of Phd student Frøydis Sved Skottvoll from the convergence environment Organ on a chip and nano-devices Tester ut legemidler på levende modeller av menneskeorganer (link to Apollon, in Norwegian)
Postponed calls for events and internationalization
Our bi-annual calls for events and internationalization would normally had application deadlines 1 June. Due to the coronavirus situation and uncertain times with regards to both events and travelling, we transfer the money to the next deadline which is 1 December.
Events
All events which were to take place before the summer, have been cancelled due to the corona situation. SPARK Norway's activities have been paused, the program period is extended so that the projects will have two active years in the program. The SPARK projects that needed assistance during the lockdown have been followed up. We look forward to the autumn and to resuming activities, either in the form of traditional meetings, or digital solutions.
New communications advisor UiO:Life Science
Grethe Thrane Johansen will be the communication adviser for UiO:Life Science the next year. We wish her welcome!
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