Latest News | Ruth Palmer Lab

Moving Chaos

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

These are some hectic times for the Palmer lab, the lab is moving to new locales. Like Christmas is not stressful already.

In the beginning of the next year the group has acquired new labs, still there are some constructing to be done before we can move. However the current setup is being packed up at a fast rate. This means that we are currently living in a small chaos.

Happy holidays and a happy new year!

Congratulations Dr Borenäs

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Finally Marcus got to defend his thesis, and what a defense it was!

The faculty opponent Gudrun Schleiermacher opened the defense by giving a brief overview of the field and laid the foundation for Marcus to explain where his findings furthered the understanding of Neuroblastoma. Confidently and methodically, Marcus presented his thesis that is based on three papers (one manuscript) focusing on in vivo work regarding Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase (ALK), its ligand and targeted small inhibitors. The work was then scrutinized by Professor Schleiermacher and the committee, while Marcus demonstrated great understanding for the significance of his work and a deep knowledge of the field in general.

After a short deliberation the committee delivered the good news that a freshly minted PhD was in our midst. The following celebration left everyone with a full stomach and fantastic mood.

During his time in the lab Marcus contributed to at several other papers, outside his thesis work, while also becoming a licensed MD and becoming a father. And things do not seem to slow down for Dr Borenäs, soon he heads for his postdoc at MIT. You will be missed Marcus! Good luck.

Cancerfonden grant to Ruth Palmer

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Ruth Palmer has once again been trusted by Cancerfonden to conduct high quality research.

The project “Decoding ALK Signaling: Harnessing Model Systems for Effective Therapeutic targeting of ALK-Driven Neuroblastoma” has been awarded 5.25 million SEK by Cancerfonden. The lab thanks the foundation for their trust and we are eager to continue our work of finding novel treatment strategies for Neuroblastoma patients.

Marcus avoided smashed thumb

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Marcus Borenäs MD, is one step closer to becoming a proper doctor.

Today was the day when Marcus showed everyone his handyman skills. Expertly drilling a hole in his thesis and then nailing it to a board.

We are all looking forward to the 29th of November, when Marcus is going to defend his thesis “Novel signaling and treatment regimes in Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase driven neuroblastoma models”. His opponent will be Gudrun Schleiermacher, Institute Curie, Paris, France.

Welcome Dr Arne Claeys

Mon, 07 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Ruth Palmer lab would like to extend their warmest welcome to Dr Arne Claeys.

Arne defended his thesis, titled ‘A Computational Exploration of MHC-based Immune Selection Signals in Large Cancer Genome Sequencing Datasets’, in December 2023 at Ghent University. However Arne is no stranger to Gothenburg, he spent a few months in our lab already one year ago. Now he is back as a postdoctoral researcher to provide the lab with a much-needed expertise in bioinformatics.

Welcome back Arne, we’ll hope you like it here.

Dr Sanjay Kumar Sukumar

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Congratulations Dr Sanjay Kumar Sukumar on successfully defending your thesis “Investigating the functions of Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase in neuronal tissues”.

After a fruitful (fruitfly?) couple of years at the Palmer lab Sanjay defended his thesis in the Arvid Carlson auditorium, in the presence of family, friends and colleagues. '

After his thesis presentation Sanjay argued for its validity both in a laboratory setting and the natural world. He also introduced some new terminology that offer great insight in visual interpretation of confocal images.

The Palmer group is very happy to have had Dr Sukumar here and lucky that he decided to stay for a while longer.

Joint PhD Jonathan Gabre defends his thesis

Mon, 23 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Jonathan Gabre has succesfully defended his thesis “Computational approaches to facilitate the identification of novel therapeutic targets in neuroblastoma and other ALK- driven cancers” at the University of Ghent.

Dr. Gabre has spent the last years of his PhD studies in Ghent in the of our close collaborator and, joint supervisor, Professor Jimmy Van den Eynden. Although exclusively a bioinformatician Jonathan also has been exposed to the wet lab experience of the Palmer lab in Gothenburg.

One of his acheivments has been to develop the web application CLEAN (the Cell Line Explorer web Application of Neuroblastoma) an incredible useful tool for the scientific community.

Congratulations Doctor Jonathan Gabre!

Ruth Palmer is appointed Wallenberg Scholar

Tue, 26 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Professor Ruth Palmer is appointed Wallenberg Scholar. She and seven other researchers at the University of Gothenburg recieves funding for 5 years to persue research questions of their own choice.

More information here: Wallenberg Foundation Akademiliv Wallenberg Scholar Profile

Background Wallenberg Scholars

“The Wallenberg Scholars program was initiated in 2009 with the goal of providing some of Sweden’s best researchers with a larger grant that can be freely used for research for five years with no restrictions. The idea was to provide leading researchers with the freedom and resources to motivate them to stay in Sweden.”

Neuroblastoma Research Symposium

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Ruth Palmer lab goes on a Symposium trip.

This year Neuroblastoma UK invited researchers to Cambridge for two days discussing the current events and latest findings in the field. Clinical, translational and basic scientist exchanged ideas at this relatively small meeting, which allowed us to have some rewarding panel discussions with the speakers. The session topics ranged from developmental plasticity and microenvinroment to various modalities of therapies for Neuroblastoma. Ruth Palmer herself presented some of the data from current publications which were met by some “wows” from the audience, and continued with some results which are going to be featured in an upcoming manuscript.

In between these sessions there was time for coffee, snacks and poster presentations. Our lab and collaborators came prepared with no less than 6 posters and a small talk by Peter Merseburger PhD student in Jimmy Van den Eyndens lab, who presented some spatial transcriptomic data from tumors treated in our lab.

Friday evening gave us some time to relax in the Clare College historical halls, with good food served. Then we were off to bed, rooms were provided by the college.

After two intense days we are now back in Gothenburg with some fresh ideas and a renewed confidence that the lab is headed in the right direction.

VR funding to Ruth Palmer

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Swedish Reasearch Council (Vetenskapsrådet, VR) is granting Ruth Palmer 4.8 million SEK.

She recieves the funding for the project Exploring ALK downstream signaling for improved targeted therapies and future treatment of Neuroblastoma. The lab is now able to continue our work towards a molecule or set of molecules that when targeted kills off the tumor cells while leaving healthy tissue unaffected. While the lab has been able to, in the past, find treatment options for individual patients¹ ², we are still looking to discover a therapy that is effective on an entire patient group.

NHL - Night Hockey Lab

Thu, 26 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

What’s better than beer, bbq and hockey?

I guess that depends who answers, but the lab seems to have enjoyed this evening. We started out with lighting up the barbecue to get the sausages warm and toasty in the cold October dusk. Sadly we had to move in for the eating of said food, the weather did not really permit sitting outside.

After we filled our bellies, the lab gathered on the tram to Scandinavium to see Frölunda HC (home team) play against IK Oskarshamn. A tight game where Frölunda did not perform at its capabilities ended in a defeat for the Gothenburg team.

Not discuaraged by this we are sure that this might be a recurring activity for the lab.

Hope for treatment against deadly childhood cancer

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Recently Ruth had the honor to be interviewed by people at the Wallenberg foundation.

In this high quality production Ruth elaborates the story of how she ended up in Sweden and a recent unexpected discovery that brought hope to the children with Neuroblastoma¹.

We thank the Wallenberg foundation for bringing attention to the important work we do at the lab and for their generous funding of the continued work with molecules that one day might cure children with Neuroblastoma.

ATR inhibition enables complete tumour regression in ALK-driven NB mouse models ↩︎

Conference; Advances in Neuroblastoma Research

Mon, 15 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

At this years ANR meeting the lab made an impact.

Almost the entire lab went to Amsterdam to rub shoulders with the Neuroblastoma Research community. What’s more we went without “adult” supervision, Professor Palmer had another meeting on the other side of the globe and Professor Hallberg went over the pond to the US.

Marcus accidentally submitted an abstract that got him on stage to present “ALK ligand ALKAL2 potentiates MYCN-driven neuroblastoma in abcence of ALK mutation”. He admits to beeing nervous, but put up a brilliant show that garnered applause from the entire auditorium.

Gothenburg Cancer Meeting 2019

Fri, 10 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Big congratulations to Hannah, who got a Poster award for her work ”The role of Biniou and Bagpipe transcription factors in Alk signaling during Drosophila embryogenesis”.

The Sahlgrenska Cancer Center hosted the first Gothenburg Cancer Meeting, giving an opportunity to meet local cancer researchers. Two days conference covering topics from basic and translational research to clinical research in both oral and poster presentations.

Ruth Palmer- Cancer Researcher of the Year

Tue, 08 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Ruth Palmer has been named Cancer Researcher of the Year for her work on neuroblastoma and different kinds of lung cancers. Congratulations to all the team!

Read about it on Cancerfonden and the Universitys website.