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BFS to Nils Halberg at the Department of Biomedicine!

This years’ recruitment scholarship from Bergen Research Foundation (BFS) was awarded to Nils Halberg.

Hypoxia, insulin resistance and Nils Halberg
Hypoxia induces fibrosis, inflammation and insulin resistance in adipose tissue
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Nils Halberg

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Nils Halberg is a molecular biologist with a master in Human Biology and a PhD in Diabetes Biology. Since 2009, Dr. Halberg has worked as postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University in New York. However, he applied for the scholarship via the group Cellnet, and will become a member of the staff at the Department of Biomedicine during 2015.

 

Dr. Halberg is in good company, the other winners being the cancer researcher Stian Knappskog from Mohn Cancer Research Laboratory, and the geologist Nele Meckler. Nele also packs with her an ERC Starting Grant when she moves to Norway from Switzerland during 2015.

 

BFS – a door opener for professor position

In 2014, BFS celebrated 10 years as the largest foundation of its kind, allocating more than 400 million NOK to research at the University of Bergen and Helse Bergen HF. The recruitment scholarships are given over a period of 4 years. A part of the deal between the foundation and UiB is to regard the candidates as competent for a permanent professor position. It is therefore a prerequisite that the department and the faculty advertise a relevant permanent position in the field of the candidate.

 

Obesity may potentiate cancer metastasis

Obesity is a major risk factor for the development of metastatic cancer. Nils Halberg intends to analyze gene expression profiles from tumors of cancer patients with varying degrees of obesity, using mouse modelling, bioinformatics, biochemistry and molecular biology methodologies. The gene expression datasets will be further strengthened with data available in the Cancer Registry of Norway and Biobanks.