Some of the highlights from 2023 and 2024
Awards and appointments
Andersen awarded “Innovator of the Year 2023” from Inven2
Photo: Esben A. Nilssen
Andersen gets the award for his engagement for innovation and the many inventions based on research and the establishment of the company Authera.
Olweus appointed member of the International Scientific Committee of DKFZ
Photo: Moment Studio
Olweus was appointed by the German Federal Ministry of Science in 2024
(DKFZ, German Cancer Research Center)
Andersen elected as a member of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
Photo: Thomas B. Eckhof
DNVA is a non-governmental, nationwide body founded in 1857 embracing all fields of science and support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway.
Postdoc Eirini Giannakopoulou received two prizes for Best Publication 2023 and a Young Scientist award
Photo: Andreas Romaine
Giannakopoulou received two prizes for best publication in 2023 from K.G.Jebsen Stiftelsen and the Norwegian Society for Immunology, and she received the Young Scientist award from the Norwegian Oncology Forum
Researcher Chloe B. Steen receives Early Researcher Award 2024 from OUS
Photo: Per Marius Didriksen
The awards are distributed annually in order to honor excellent scientific work at the Oslo University Hospital.
Researcher Stian Foss received the NSI award for the best research article published in 2024
The award is given annually from the Norwegian Society for Immunology.
Johanne Jacobsen awarded Young Investigator 2024 from the Scandinavian Society for Immunology
Photo: Ine Eriksen, UiO
Jacobsen receives the award for her research on the germinal center reaction and for discovering novel mechanisms underlying this process.
Examples of external funding
Large global grant for Johanna Olweus
Michael Birnbaum (team lead MATCHMAKERS) and Johanna Olweus. Photo: Nina E. Rangøy, Kreftforeningen
To Decipher the T-cell receptor cancer-recognition code with the Grand Challenges team MATCHMAKERS
KLINBEFORSK grant to Karl-Johan Malmberg to launch clinical trial with NK cell therapy
Karl Johan Malmberg. Photo: Moment Studio
The project is a clinical phase I program targeting hematological malignancies with adaptive NK cells
Qualification projects from the Norwegian Cancer Society and postdoc positions from HSØ
Jan Terje Andersen, Ludvig Munthe, and Thea Våtsveen's qualification projects will focus on design of a new tailored antibody-format to target cancer and on new drug actions targeting LTK in chronic lymphocytic leukemia and mantle cell lymphoma respectively. HSØ will fund a postdoc position in both Munthe’s team and Andersen's team
Cecilia Fahlquist-Hagert and Emma Haapaniemi received a grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation
Emma Haapaniemi. Photo: Moment Studio
The project is in collaboration with Professor Duncan Sutherland and Associate Professor Lin Lin at Aarhus University
Lund-Johansen and Greiff signed a research collaboration agreement with Genmab
Fridtjof Lund-Johansen and Victor Greiff. Photo: Elisabeth K. Andersen, Inven2
Genmab is a Danish leading manufacturer of therapeutic antibodies. The project funds four PhD students and post-docs who combine yeast display and array technology to measure binding of thousands of antibodies to thousands of antigens. The data is used to train AI-based antibody design.
Postdoc Lamberto Torralba-Raga funded by the GenScript Life Science Research Grant Program
Lamberto Torralba-Raga. Photo: Lise Kveberg
The project is using CRISPR/Cas9 technology in adaptive NK cells to create a new cell therapy product. The project builds upon the development of the ADAPT-NK cell product that is a cell therapy product developed in Karl-Johan Malmberg’s group soon to be tested in clinical trials.
Highlighted publications
Publication in Nature Partner Journal (NPJ) vaccines outlining a much-needed strategy to select safe T-cell receptors.
1st author Zofia Foldvari
Zsofia Foldvari et al. 2023. “A systematic safety pipeline for selection of T-cell receptors to enter clinical use”
Chloé B. Steen was shared first author on a paper published in Nature Biotechnol on development of the machine learning framework CytoSPACE.
Image: Modified front page, Nature Biotech
Vahid et al 2023 "High-resolution alignment of single-cell and spatial transcriptomes with CytoSPACE"
Publication in Nature Cancer on novel TCR targeting a shared mutation in AML efficiently eliminating AML in patient-derived xenograft models in vivo
Image: Modified front page, Nature Cancer
Eirini Giannakopoulou et al. 2023. "A T cell receptor targeting a recurrent driver mutation in FLT3 mediates elimination of primary human acute myeloid leukemia in vivo"
Publication in Nature Communications on new antibody technology
Jan Terje Andersen and Stian Foss.
A new antibody technology that secures favorable pharmacokinetic properties as well as enhanced killing of cancer cells and bacteria.
Stian Foss et al. 2024. "Human IgG Fc-engineering for enhanced plasma half-life, mucosal distribution and killing of cancer cells and bacteria"
Publication in Nature Immunology compiling a pan-cancer single cell transcriptional reference map
Herman Netskar and Aline Pfefferle. Photo: Karl-Johan Malmberg
Describing six NK cell states present in normal tissue and tumors, with implications on outcomes.
Herman Netskar and Aline Pfefferle et al. 2024. "Pan-cancer profiling of tumor-infiltrating natural killer cells through transcriptional reference mapping"
Publication in Cell Stem Cell on a novel approach to improve persistence of allogeneic T and NK cell therapy products from Malmberg group
Image: Modified front page, Cell Stem Cell
Hammer et al 2024. "Genetic ablation of adhesion ligands mitigates rejection of allogeneic cellular immunotherapies"
Publication in Blood Cancer Journal on identification of early genetic changes in follicular lymphoma
Last author, June Helen Myklebust. Photo: Moment Studio
Bay et al. 2024 "Multi-omics profiling of longitudinal samples reveals early genomic changes in follicular lymphoma"
Publication in Med on a novel switch receptor overcoming the HLA-E checkpoint in solid tumors including glioblastoma
Shared 1st author Lamberto Torralba-Raga and last author Karl-Johan Malmberg. Photo: Lise Kveberg
Sæthersmoen et al 2024 "Targeting HLA-E-overexpressing cancers with a NKG2A/C switch receptor"
Reviewed strategies for engineering hypoimmune allogeneic T and NK cells in Nature Reviews Immunology.
Karen Martin
Karen Martin et al 2024. Malmberg group. "Engineering immune-evasive allogeneic cellular immunotherapies"
Other major achievements
Lund-Johansen's team assembled a database with more than 100,000 HLA-bound peptides detected by mass spectrometry
Fridtjof Lund Johansen. Photo: Moment Studio
Munthe's team initiated startup of IMPRESS-Norway cohort of LTK inhibitor for multidrug-refractory MM patients and research program on prostate cancer and sarcoma
Ludvig Munthe. Photo: Moment Studio
