SPOTLIGHT ON NORWAY

Healthy outlook for Norwegian life science

Higher state spending on health and medical research and great working conditions make Norway an attractive place to tackle some of the world's biggest health problems.

A BREATHTAKING coastline, forest-covered mountains, valuable oil resources, and the highest standard of living in the world are well known as some of Norway's biggest attractions. A better kept secret, however, is the Scandinavian country's vibrant healthcare research sector. During the past ten years, life sciences and medical research has blossomed in Norway, attracting investment from the government, charities and pharmaceutical companies, with scientists tackling some of the most common and life-threatening diseases, such as diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease.

“Norway has not traditionally been a research orientated country,” says Joel Glover, director of the Norwegian Centre for Stem Cell Research, but there appears to be an growing recognition that research in life sciences “represents an important investment for the future,” he says.

It is easier to establish a career here than in many other countries. PhD students get a good salary and we have a short gap between the research-leaders and the younger researchers. Vincent Eijsink, Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Much of the action is in the capital. In June 2008, the journal Genome Technology named Oslo as one of the 20 best places for biotech in the world. According to Professor Hilde Nebb, vice dean of research at the University of Oslo, the country's research institutes are increasingly giving the more established hubs in Europe, Asia and the US a run for their money. “Norway has excellent health-related research institutes, very good medical technology, and attractive working conditions,” she says. “Plus, we have good funding opportunities and permanent positions available.”

Brimming biobanks

Helping to propel Norwegian medical research on to the global stage are the country's biobanks, which give researchers access to millions of blood and cell samples, tissues, organs and extracted DNA, says Nebb. After approval by regional ethics committees, the banked biomaterials can be accessed by any research teams. Lars Akslen, professor of pathology at the University of Bergen, has been using materials from Norway's biobanks to identify new cancer types and sub-groups, in order to develop better personalised medicines. His group has recently been awarded a ten-year grant to establish the Norwegian Centre of Excellence, Centre for Cancer Biomarkers (CCBIO), opening this year, and Akslen believes the biobank system and registers are key to Norway's global success in biotech research and innovation: “Our extremely well-organized biobanks give us a unique advantage,” he says.

Life-logging

Another boon for Norwegian researchers working on public health is access to databanks and registries of health collected from hundreds of thousands of citizens over their lifespan. “It is essential for our success that we are able to follow the population's health over time,” says Kristian Hveem referring to the Nord-Trøndelag health study (HUNT) which he heads up at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. “Every tenth year, we invite all citizens of Nord Trondelag county to be screened,” says Hveem. As a result, the HUNT study is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive longitudinal population-based health surveys, and has so far generated data from 120,000 people.

Starting young

Though health related and medical research in general has progressed in Norway in the past decades, oncology is leading the charge. Increased public focus on cancer and greater governmental funding has led to a number of spinoff biotech companies and innovative networks for oncology researchers. One non-profit organisation, the Oslo Cancer Cluster, aims to reduce the time it takes to develop new cancer medication and diagnostics. It has evolved into an extensive network of researchers and private investors from Norway and abroad since it was established in 2006 as one of Norway's Centres of Expertise. Today, the cluster brings together almost 70 members including pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Novartis and Merck Serono, and academic research institutions such as the University of Bergen and NTNU. Not only does the cluster promote biotech research and generate funding, it also fosters future medical innovation in unconventional and proactive ways, for instance by arranging internships for high school students in biotech-research laboratories.

“To many young Norwegians it is more attractive to work in the oil industry or with computer sciences than to perform medical research, but we need more researchers in the biotech field. By allowing a group of high school students to come and work with us for one week per year, we give them a feeling of how research actually is done,” says Kristian Berg, who investigates radiation biology at Oslo University Hospital, which participates in the Cancer Cluster's project. During the internships with Berg and his team, the students learn the basics of how light can be used to treat cancer. “Hopefully, it will help to strengthen Norwegian basic research and the medical industry in the long run,” Berg says.

The Cluster hopes to assemble the cancer research network in one place in 2015 with the opening of a new innovation park in Oslo. The buildings will total 32,000 square meters and house the Cancer Registry of Norway, several of the members of the Oslo Cancer Cluster and both the Oncology Pathology Lab and Institute for Medical Informatics at Oslo University Hospital. To help fledgling oncology start-ups, the park will also include a biotech incubator. And, unusually, a high school. “The Innovation Park will ensure and strengthen the recruitment to life science and research and at the same time will improve the quality of education within math, and physical, social and health-science subjects,” says Kaare Norum, chairman of the board of the Oslo Cancer Cluster.

High school students get a taste for working in the lab during an internship at Oslo University Hospital. Credit: OSLO CANCER CLUSTER/LINDA CARTRIDGE

Healthy priorities

International researchers are also drawn to life science roles in Norway in large part by the favourable working conditions. “For young researchers Norway is attractive because it is easier to establish a career here than in many other countries. PhD students get a good salary and we have a quite equal structure with a short gap between the research-leaders and the younger researchers,” says Vincent Eijsink, a protein engineer at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, adding that in Norway you are not dependent on meeting the right people in order to get ahead.

The growing potential of the life sciences sector and a shift away from oil and gas research (see box) is reflected in the budget priorities of the Research Council of Norway, which has identified eight key areas for funding for 2014, with health and healthy ageing research topping petroleum research in the council's budgetary recommendations.

The government is also backing a new interdisciplinary life science building at the University of Oslo. The 65,000 square meter-development will be located near Oslo University Hospital, which will make it easy to collaborate and test scientific findings clinically, says Ole Petter Ottersen, rector of the University of Oslo. “Interdisciplinary research is definitely one of the university's priorities. As in many Western countries, Norway has an ageing population, but by working across disciplines we can develop better medicines and technologies that can improve the population's health and quality of life,” he says.

A sketch of the planned life science centre at the University of Oslo, which would house approximately 1,000 life sciences researchers. Credit: UNIVERSITY OF OSLO

Stem cell success

Oslo University Hospital is also home to the Norwegian Centre for Stem Cell Research, which was set up in 2002 with government funding in the aim of bringing together stem cell researchers in the Baltic to push advances in the field. “Stem cell research has become a major international activity, and it is hard for any country to not join in,” says Glover, the centre's director. “Policy makers in Norway clearly feel that it is important to develop Norwegian expertise in the area so that the promise of stem cell treatments can be realized for patients at Norwegian hospitals. And our health system, with its well-developed patient databases, is particularly well situated for implementing such treatments,” he says.

The proximity of researchers at the centre to patients means advances can readily be translated to the clinic, says Glover, and several clinical trials of stem cell therapies — for instance to treat cartilage damage and for corneal replacement — are already underway. The advances being made in stem-cell research also “mesh nicely with other areas of internationally competitive life sciences in Norway, such as cancer research, immunology, and neuroscience,” he adds. “We hope that Norway will seize the opportunity to use its considerable financial resources to develop all of these areas much more strongly in the future.”

Harnessing riches

Alongside the rapid growth of medical research and innovation in Norway over the past decade, the country's research endeavours in petroleum and gas continue apace.

As the world's sixth largest oil producer, the third largest oil exporting country and one of the most significant suppliers of natural gas to the European market, Norway strives to lead the way technologically when it comes to extraction methods. It is a top destination for those with industry expertise looking for solutions to problems such as dwindling reserves.

Statoil Troll A natural gas platform of the coast of Norway is a feat of engineering. Credit: ØYVIND HAGEN - STATOIL ASA

The Centre for Integrated Petroleum Research (CIPR), at the University of Bergen, for instance, receives funding from the National Research Council and several oil and gas companies to find new ways to maximise extraction from oil and gas fields before they are shut down, as well as methods of storing CO2 beneath the North Sea. The centre's approach combines maths, geology, chemistry and physics to come up with new techniques. The interdisciplinary nature of CIPR's research provides a range of opportunities for both PhD and masters students who benefit from free higher education in Norway, even for international students.

Elsewhere the non-profit organisation SINTEF, the largest independent research institute in Scandinavia, is using its Petroleum Research arm to investigate new ways to extract oil from inaccessible small pockets which are currently unexploited.

The private petroleum industry is also developing innovative technologies to get the most out of Norway's energy resources. International oil and gas company Statoil, which is based in Norway, has more than 3,000 staff working on 300 projects associated with increased recovery, says Siri Espedal Kindem, Statoil's senior vice president for technology excellence.

The company is also investing 240 million Krone ($42m) to build a new centre for improved recovery in Trondheim, which is expected to open at the end of the year. It also funds basic research which could improve the recovery of oil extraction through VISTA, a funding initiative which aims to strengthen links between Statoil and Norwegian academia by supporting 20 PhD and posdcoc projects and professorships each year.