Kjetil Taskén M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Medicine at University of Oslo in 2001 and since 2018 served as Head of the Institute of Cancer Research, Oslo University Hospital

Kjetil Taskén (born 1965, M.D., Ph.D.) was appointed Professor of Medicine at University of Oslo (UiO) in 2001 and has since 2018 served as Head of the Institute of Cancer Research, Oslo University Hospital (OUH) where he is also Group Leader for the Cell Signaling and Immune Regulation Group (approx. 20 people) in the Dept. of Cancer Immunology. He is part of the OUH Comprehensive Cancer Centre leadership and is from 2021 Director of the OUH Centre for Precision Cancer Medicine. Taskén was the Director of the Biotechnology Centre of Oslo, UiO from 2003 to 2016 and the founding Director of Centre for Molecular Medicine Norway (NCMM), Nordic EMBL Partnership, UiO where he served from 2008 to 2018. He established and directed thenational infrastructure for academic chemical biology and screening (Nor-Openscreen) and was the national director for EATRIS (translational medicine).

More recently he has been key in building the national cancer precision medicine initiative for Norway (InPreD molecular diagnostics infrastructure, IMPRESS-Norway national clinical trial and CONNECT public-private partnership). He is a partner in the K.G. Jebsen Centre for B Cell Malignancies and in the new Centre for Clinical Cancer Research (MATRIX). He serves on several evaluation panels, SABs and Editorial Boards, including the IMI Scientific Committee, and the CRUK New agents committee. Taskén received the Anders Jahre Medical Prize for younger scientists in 2002 (Nordic award), and won the King Olav V’s Prize for Cancer Research (national life-achievement award) in 2016.

He was elected to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 2005. Taskén is author of >290 publications and inventor > 20 patents (>13,000 citation, h-index =61). Current research is in tumor immune evasion mechanisms and immune regulation and in functional precision medicine and drug screening for different solid and blood cancers.

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