News regarding Oslo Cancer Cluster

Pexels / Anna Tarazevich

Preventing breast cancer in Norway

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A new research project is exploring how polygenic risk score tests can be used for early detection and prevention of breast cancer in Norway.

Your genes can reveal more about your future than you might realise. New testing technology called polygenic risk scores provide a measure of your personal risk to develop a disease due to your genes.

The research project AnteNOR is exploring how these tests can be implemented in Norway to prevent and detect breast cancer earlier.

“We need tools for more precise screening. Many cancer risks come from our genetic dispositions, and we can identify individual risk levels for common cancers with personalized screening,” said Peeter Padrik, CEO of the Estonian company Antegenes, which offers clinical grade genetic tests for cancer precision prevention.

Breast cancer screening in Norway is done through the mammography programme, coordinated by the Norwegian Cancer Registry, and usually starts when a woman turns 50. However, 20 per cent of all breast cancer cases happen to women who are younger than 50 years old. Some of these women could benefit from taking the polygenic risk score test. 

“We are currently seeing a revolution in cancer diagnostics, treatments, and care. We believe personalised approaches have the potential to transform cancer from a deadly disease to a disease patients live well with. Identifying breast cancer early by using genetic tests is part of this revolution,” said Ketil Widerberg, general manager at Oslo Cancer Cluster.

The project is a public-private collaboration between Antegenes, Oslo Cancer Cluster and some of Norway’s top cancer research and hospital environments at the University of Oslo, Oslo University Hospital and Vestre Viken Hospital Trust.

The AnteNOR partners will together investigate how to create models for new screening programmes, where genetics-based screening can be used. The project also investigates how to implement these new approaches in the clinic and national health service.

The project has been funded by the Norway Grants Green ICT Programme and will be carried out in 2022-2023.

15 years of Cancer Crosslinks 

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Take a peek behind the scenes in the making of the 15th edition of Cancer Crosslinks.

Cancer Crosslinks, a unique educational forum for the Norwegian oncology community, will take place on 26 January 2023 at Oslo Cancer Cluster Innovation Park.  

Activating the community 

It has truly “taken a village” to build the annual meeting place Cancer Crosslinks, in the sense that it has been supported by a whole community in oncology. 

Cancer Crosslinks was established in 2009, when Oslo Cancer Cluster in collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb organized the first meeting of its kind. Since then, the meeting has been supported by 15 sponsors in addition to BMS – all members of Oslo Cancer Cluster. 

The lively networking is one of the signatures of Cancer Crosslinks, where clinicians, researchers, industry representatives, health officials, and more, meet and make new connections. Photo: Cameo UB

The goal of Cancer Crosslinks is to promote interactions between researchers and clinicians, as well as to encourage translational and clinical research, and new collaborations to advance the development of innovative cancer treatments. 

Charlotte Wu Homme, Head of Membership and Events, Oslo Cancer Cluster, and Project Lead, Cancer Crosslinks, commented: 

“Oslo Cancer Cluster is committed to supporting the tradition of scientific inquiry by providing relevant and successfully facilitated symposiums for the oncology community. This support, made possible by our members and sponsors, helps us to make a positive impact on society.” 

Homme collaborates with the Oslo Cancer Cluster team and student companies from Ullern Upper Secondary School, to ensure the event is delivered successfully. 

Latest research developments 

The hallmark of Cancer Crosslinks is the full-day educational programme featuring distinguished international and national experts presenting recent advances in oncology. 

Jutta Heix, Head of International Affairs, Oslo Cancer Cluster, and Scientific Lead and Co-Founder, Cancer Crosslinks, commented: 

“When developing the programme, we start by identifying emerging concepts and recent progress in precision treatment and immuno-oncology, which are close to clinical implementation and of relevance beyond one specific cancer indication. We then reach out to leading experts from the US and Europe who can discuss these topics. Inviting these clinicians and researchers to Norway offers a unique opportunity to stimulate discussions and potential collaborations with their colleagues here.” 

Michel Sadelain, Director, Center for Cell Engineering, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Cancer Crosslinks has attracted renowned speakers from across the world. In 2020, Michel Sadelain, Director, Center for Cell Engineering, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, gave a talk.

The title of Cancer Crosslinks 2023 is “New dimensions to the hallmarks of cancer: How is the last decade of discoveries advancing our understanding of cancer biology and transforming precision medicine?”. The idea of The Hallmarks of Cancer was originally coined by Douglas Hanahan and Robert Weinberg in a 2000 paper published in CELL. It has inspired the Cancer Crosslinks programmes since 2009.

“We are honoured that Prof. Hanahan accepted our invitation to give the opening keynote,” Heix added. 

Across sectors and borders 

Cancer Crosslinks is open to everyone and free to attend, and usually attracts more than 350 representatives from all over Norway. The lively networking is one of the main reasons people participate on-site. The program is also live-streamed, which opens for even broader and more international participation.

Cancer Crosslinks attracts participants from across Norway and different sectors of society. Photo: Cameo UB

Marine Jeanmougin, EU Advisor, Oslo Cancer Cluster, commented: 

“The rise of digital technologies presents an opportunity to support oncology care and address some of the unmet needs in the clinic. We are thrilled to welcome two outstanding young researchers to talk us through their latest work in computational biology and clinical artificial intelligence!” 

Cancer Crosslinks has become one of the leading national meeting places gathering oncologists, hematologists, translational researchers, healthcare providers, regulatory experts, and industry representatives. 

We look forward to seeing you there! 

Cancer Crosslinks 2023: Find out more 

 

This meeting series is marking 15 years of excellence based on the continued support of members of Oslo Cancer Cluster, the team behind Oslo Cancer Cluster and the wider oncology ecosystem. Thank you also to Innovation Norway for supporting Cancer Crosslinks through the mature cluster programme. 

 

Norwegian technology to help UK oncologists

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British hospitals can now improve care of breast cancer patients by using a new health data platform from Norway.

The pharmaceutical company Pfizer’s UK branch has announced grants to provide NHS hospitals with subscription access to a research and registry platform from the Norwegian company Ledidi. The platform will be used for clinical audit of breast cancer patients.

Ledidi, a member of Oslo Cancer Cluster, was formed by two academic surgeons, who saw the need for better tools for collecting, structuring, analyzing and visualizing health data.

Improving patient treatment

Knowledge about the effect of cancer treatments and diagnostics is often limited to what is known from clinical studies, but little is known about the effect once they are implemented in standard clinical practice.

“For cancer clinics, the possibilities of monitoring patient outcomes combined with other data from their patients daily, gives new possibilities of understanding the effect of their efforts and identifying areas in patient care and treatment that could be improved,” commented Einar Martin Aandahl, CEO and co-founder of Ledidi.

The problem is that data gathered from patients is often fragmented in different systems, unstructured and contains a lot of free text. To be able to monitor patients’ outcomes, the data needs to be structured in a way that makes them available for analysis.

Collaboration between clinics

The two clinicians teamed up with engineers and developed a cloud-based service to help clinicians and researchers collaborate on data across hospitals and faster reach novel discoveries.

“Ledidi Core allows the clinicians to create structured databases and forms for data capture, so that data can be collected in the same format from several collaborating colleagues or clinics. The solution is designed for multiple participants to collaborate on a shared database,” Aandahl explained.

According to Aandahl, the database can be shared between health personnel, but they cannot access each other’s data directly, and it is done in compliance with security and privacy regulations. Still, everyone can run analysis on the whole dataset and get instant results from the data. Aandahl also informs us the database can be used both for research studies and patient registries.

“By collaborating with other clinics, one also gets the possibility to compare practice from clinic to clinic and find a benchmark for how your own clinic is performing. By this, we aim to break down the barriers between research and clinical practice,” Aandahl added.

Towards data-driven healthcare

Almost every sector of society is becoming increasingly digitalized, but the health care sector has been lagging behind, both because of strict regulations on health data and the complexities in providing healthcare.

“By finding safe and easy ways to structure and collaborate on health data for secondary purposes, we can generate new knowledge and insights that can improve patient care and the health of many people. We believe health care needs to be more data driven and we work to lift the barriers standing in the way,” Aandahl said.

Nordic Life Science Days 2022

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Olso Cancer Cluster joined NLSDays 2022 to strengthen Nordic ties in life science, healthcare and oncology.

Nordic Life Science Days 2022 were held on 28-29 September in Malmö, gathering the Nordic life science community for partnering opportunities, educational sessions and mingling in the exhibition area.

Advancing Norwegian life science

Since 2015, Oslo Cancer Cluster has coordinated the joint booth Norway for Life Science, promoting the Norwegian healthcare and life science industry. This year, the ten Norwegian life science partners came together once again in the exhibition area to make new contacts and reinforce bonds across borders.

The Norwegian booth included Oslo Cancer Cluster, UiO Life Science, Aleap, Norway Health Tech, Nansen Neuroscience Network, The Life Science Cluster, Innovation Norway, Legemiddelindustrien (LMI), Norwegian Research Council, the Centre for Digital Life and Inven2.

Vaccine insights

Oslo Cancer Cluster co-hosted one of the super sessions in the NLSDays programme, together with the Life Science Cluster. The topic was Vaccine Crosslinks: From cancer to COVID and included presentations from key experts in vaccine development from the Nordics. Mikael Engsig, CEO of Nykode Therapeutics, commented:

“Nykode Therapeutics was founded on the basis of our unique immunotherapy technology platform and its properties to up or downregulate specific immune responses. Today, we strive hard to put the platform to its full use across several therapeutics areas with unmet medical needs such as oncology, infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases.”

Immune links between cancer and infectious diseases were discussed by the panelists during super session 3. Photo: Dave Tippett / Oslo Cancer Cluster

The speakers included: Ms. Eleanor Malone (Editor in Chief, Citeline), Dr. Heinz Lubenau (Chief Drug Development Officer, NEC OncoImmunity), Mr. Michael Engsig (CEO, Nykode Therapeutics), Dr. Holger Kissel (Vice President Business Alliances, BioNTech), Dr. Carl Kilander (Partner, HealthCap), Mr. Mike Ryan (Executive Vice President Europe, Eversana) and Dr. Gunnveig Grødeland (Senior Scientist and Research Group Leader, University of Oslo).

Eversana and Citeline kindly sponsored this session.

Our members on the stage

OncoSyne and DoMore Diagnostics, two companies from the Accelerator programme in Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator, were selected as “Rising Stars” at this year’s NLSInvest. The two companies pitched to an audience of global investors, along with start-up companies from across the Nordics.

Peter W. Eide, CTO in Oncosyne, pitched at NLSInvest. Photo: Dave Tippett / Oslo Cancer Cluster

“We saw NLSDays as an excellent opportunity to meet new collaborators and promote the company. As such, the conference was very useful. We have a host of promising follow-up meetings, and being selected for pitching with other NLSDays Rising Stars was a nice recognition of our achievements and ambitious growth targets,” said Peter W. Eide, CTO in OncoSyne.

Torbjørn Furuseth, CEO and co-founder of DoMore Diagnostics, presented the company to the NLSDays audience. Photo: Dave Tippett / Oslo Cancer Cluster

“It is great to see that NLSDays has become such a large and important event, gathering so many early-stage companies, investors and others. We were happy for being selected as one of the Rising Stars and got the opportunity to pitch our company. This event is a great place to network and we had several good meetings,” said Torbjørn Furuseth, CEO and co-founder of DoMore Diagnostics.

Read more about the Rising Stars here.

In addition to our “Rising Stars”, several members of Oslo Cancer Cluster held company presentations during the NLSDays programme.

Gjest Breistein, CFO of Lytix Biopharma, presented the company’s vaccination technology platform for treatment of cancer. Kerstin Jakobsson, CEO of Kongsberg Beam Technology, presented the company’s proton radiation therapy devices for cancer treatment. Bjørn Klem, CEO of Adjutec Pharma, presented the company’s novel solutions against antibiotic resistance.

Sparking innovation

The NLSDays Fireside Chat with SPARK took a deep dive into how the SPARK programme has been set up at universities in the Nordics.

“There is a great untapped potential in research being done at the universities to be transformed into innovative solutions that create value for society. This isn’t unique for Oslo, or even for Norway, but also a challenge for universities across Europe. When Jutta Heix from Oslo Cancer Cluster introduced us to the SPARK concept, we saw it was a good match for UiO Life Science and decided to sponsor it. It has had great success at Stanford University and there have been over 60 programmes established globally,” said Morten Egeberg, Leader of SPARK Norway at the University of Oslo.

Morten Egeberg, Leader of SPARK Norway, moderated the SPARK Fireside Chat at NLSDays 2022. Photo: Dave Tippett / Oslo Cancer Cluster

The so-called “Sparkees”, academic innovators who have undergone the SPARK programme, had the opportunity to meet with investors at NLSDays. They were prepared beforehand about what to expect from these partnering meetings and how to build international networks.

“The focus at this year’s NLSDays was to build a closer collaboration between the SPARK programmes in the Nordics. The programmes in Norway and Finland are already well-established, and Denmark is currently setting up their programme. Our mentors all have relevant backgrounds and industry experience. The aim now is to share mentors across borders, so the ‘Sparkees’ can gain access to a wider network of expertise,” Egeberg added.

 

Thank you to everyone who took the time to visit our booth, schedule partnering meetings with us and join our sessions. The next Nordic Life Science Days will take place in Copenhagen on 29-30 September 2023. We look forward to seeing you there!