Post-doctoral research fellow and senior scientist
Dr. Katrine Lekang (2017-2021)
Katrine joined our group after defending her PhD at University of Bergen. Katrine worked on several different projects in the lab including 1) studies of the effect different treatments lengts of antibiotics on the gut microbiome, 2) effect on the microbiome of various diets, 3) effect of physical exercise on the microbiome for diabetics, 4) microbial algae and the potential for novel antibiotics, and 5) impact of the use of antibiotics on the environment. She was also lecturing in microbiology, gene technology and bioinformatics at the Department while involved in all the different research projects, and she wrote a novel on climate change. With all this competence she continued her career as a senior advisor on climate and sustainable food systems.
Dr. Elia Ciani (2019-2020)
When joining the group Elia fist worked one year on the Research Council of Norway FORNY funded project: Novel vaccine for salmon farming. Here Elia was in charge of investigating the use of membrane vesicles secreted from the bacterial body as a vaccine candidate against the disease piscirickettsiosis in Atlantic salmon. He also contributed to the investigation of toxicity of the lipopolysaccharide from Piscirickettsia salmonis in fish using a zebrafish model. Later on Elia was funded by the Norwegian fish feed company Skretting AS to screen various food ingredients for antimicrobial effects against P. salmonis. Elia is super helpful and full of ideas, and has contributed to several other projects in the lab. He is also a co-supervisor of Verena Mertes. After leaving the lab he started as a post-doctoral research fellow at Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
Dr. Jan Janouskovec (2019-2020)
I am interested in using evolutionary approaches to understand the distribution, function and origin of important biological traits. In Oslo, I contributed to the PROMISE project by searching for new biological activities in chemical extracts from algal cultures and the marine environment. I also studied the toxicity of the fish-killing haptophyte Chrysochromulina leadbeateri in a laboratory culture. The PROMiSE project was financed through the 3rd ERA-net MarineBiotech call and I was working in a close collaboration with Prof Bente Edvardsens grp at Department of Biosciences at UiO. After my time with the Department of Pharmacy, UiO, I moved on to the position as senior researcher at the Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, focusing on the evolution of chlorophylls and light-harvesting proteins as a member of Josef Komenda's group.
Jan Janouškovec (researchgate.net)
Dr. Agnieszka Wrobel (2019)
Agnieszka worked first as a technician and later as a senior research scientist in our group. As a researcher she took part in the Research Council of Norway FORNY funded project: Novel vaccine for salmon farming. In this project the efficacy of membrane vesicle as possible vaccine candidate against piscirickettsiosis was investigated. When leaving the lab Agnieszka went on to a position as research scientist with the Norwegian firm Jotun Cooperate group, Sandefjord, Norway.
Dr. Leidy Lagos (2015-2017)
Leidy has a strong background in fish immunology and really boosted our research within of host responses in Atlantic salmon, Atlantic cod, tilapia and zebrafish of infections from both Francisella species and Piscirickettsia salmonis. In our group Leidy mainly studied the potential of using membrane vesicles as a vaccine against the diseases francisellosis and piscirickettsiosis in fish. In her studies she mainly used zebrafish as a vaccine and infection model, but she also contributed to similar investigations in cod, tilapia and salmon. She authored and co-authored several publications during her two year period in our lab (Tandberg et al., 2018. Zebrafish 15:372; Lagos et al., 2017. Proteomes 5:34; Lagos et al., 2017. Fish Shellfish Immunol 67:571; Oliver et al., 2017. Fron Cell Infect Microbiol 7:420; Lagos et al., 2017. Clin Vaccine Immunol 24:e00557-16; Tandberg et al., 2017. Fish Shellfish Immunol 67:189; Tandberg et al., 2016. PLOS One 11:e0165099). She was funded by the Research Council of Norway Biotek2020 program. She went later went on to a post-doctoral position in Foods of Norway, a Centre for Research-based Innovation funded partly by Research Council of Norway and hosted by the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and the as a senior research scientist at Skretting AS, an international company in fish feed with head-quarter in Stavanger, Norway.
Dr. Alexander Kashulin (2014-2016)
Alexander was funded by the Research Council of Norway Biotek2020 program in project that aimed to investigate the potential of using membrane vesicles secreted for the bacterial body as a vaccine against the diseases francisellosis and piscirickettsiosis in fish species important in aquaculture. Although Alexanders working contract was officially with Norwegian University of Life Sciences, the project was highly collaborative and we felt Alexander was part of our group. Alexander was responsible for setting up vaccine trails in tilapia, Atlantic cod as well as in Atlantic salmon. After leaving the group Alexander went on to a post-doctoral position in Foods of Norway, a Centre for Research-based Innovation funded in part by Research Council of Norway and hosted by the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
Dr. Christian Karlsen (2012-2014)
Christian has long been interested in investigating the wound and ulcers occurring on Atlantic salmon in aquaculture. The ulcers does not only lead to economical problem for the fish farmer but is also a large animal health issue. While joining our group Christian was funded by the Norwegian Seafood Federation and the Research Council of Norway Havbruks program in a project with the aim to study the impact for the bacteria Moritella viscosa and Vibrio wodanis in the disease winter ulcers in salmon. Christian was officially employed at The Norwegian University of Life Sciences with Prof Henning Sørum as main supervisor, but the project was a collaboration between us, Dr. Håvard Sletta at SINTEF Biotechnology in Trondheim, Prof. Nils Peder Willasen at The Norwegian Artic University, Dr. Monica Hagedorn at Bernhard Nocht Institute of Tropical Disease, Hamburg, Germany, Prof Matt Waldor, Harvard University, Boston US and Cermaq AS. The project resulted in two joint publications (Karlsen et al., 2014. Microb Pathog. 77:53; Karlsen et al., 2017. J Fish Dis 40:1645). Christian later got a permanent position as a senior scientist at Nofima, a Norwegian research institute within food sciences.
Dr. Christin Vanberg (2009)
Christin was the first post-doc in our group. She was also the first to be able to transform the fish bacterial pathogen Francisella noatunenisis subsp noatunensis with a recombinant plasmid that carried the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene. The plasmid was derived from the bacterial pathogen Francisella tularensis which is a pathogen that causes the disease tularemia in mammals including humans. Christin was funded on a short-term contract to promote collaborations between the Norwegian School of Veterinary Sciences and The University of Life Sciences when they were merged in 2009 to the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. With only a three month contract Christins work really contributed to further important studies in our group, and by making F. noatunensis green fluorescently labelled contributed directly in publication in collaboration with both the UiO, and the Norwegian Artic University: the University of Tromsø (Bakkemo et al., 2011, Fish Shellfish Immunol. 31:993; Vestvik et al., 2013. Fish Shellfish Immunol 35:725).
PhD students
Dr. Verena Mertes (2019-2024)
Verena Mertes defended her thesis entitled "Extracellular vesicles from Gram-negative 
fish pathogens and their potential vaccine application" within the MicroPath group. She joined our group with a background in molecular plant biology but swiftly changed to molecular microbiology. She established methods performing genetics in the fish pathogen Yersinia ruckeri in our laboratory and took our competence within bacterial extracellular vesicles to a new level. Verena was supervised by Prof Dirk Linke (Department of Biosciences (IBV)), Dr. Duncan Colquhoun (Norwegian Veterinary Institute), Dr. Elia Ciani (Department of Pharmacy), and Dr. Athanasios Saragliadis (IBV) and Prof Hanne C. Winther-Larsen.
Dr. Petter Langlete (2015-2020)
A question within our research group was the possible impact of the nucleic acid content of membrane vesicles secreted from the bacterial body and the implications this might have when using these vesicles as therapeutics. When Petter joined our group he was interested in taking upon these investigations. Little did we realize that Petter had to start out with 20 L of a bacterial culture to be able to isolate the amount of membrane vesicles for his analysis. However, with a background and MSc from the more technical oriented subject from the Nowegian University of Science and Technology, Petter solved the technical challenges by the use of tangential filtration rather than “gold standard” in the field ultracentrifugation. During his investigations Petter found that at AT-rich sequence of DNA and shorter mRNAs are more likely to be packaged in the vesicles (Langlete et al., 2019. Front Micribiol 10:2708). Petter PhD work was funded by the Faculty of Mathematical and Natural Sciences microbiology initiative CIME (Centre of Integrative Microbial Evolution), The UiO, and the Research Council of Norway FORNY program. Petter was co-supervised by Prof Ole Andreas Økstad (Department of Pharmacy, UiO) and Dr. Anders Krabberød (Department of Biosciences, UiO). After finalizing his PhD Petter started working for Oslo Waterwork.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/petterlanglete/
Dr. Julia I. Tandberg (2013-2018)
Julia worked in the group first as a PhD student and then later as a senior researcher. Julia was interested in studying the potential of using membrane vesicles isolated from Piscirickettsia salmonis as a vaccine against the disease piscirickettsiosis in Atlantic salmon. She also investigated the potential of formulating the vesicles into nano-particles for better immunization efficacy in fish. For her studies she used an adult zebrafish vaccine and challenge model. During her PhD she spent three month in the laboratory of Prof Ian Paulsen, MacQuarie University, Sydney, Australia to learn proteomics, and three month in the laboratory of Prof Alejandro Yanez, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile to learn how to grow P. salmonis. Her work was funded by the Research Council of Norway through both the Biotek2020 program and the FORNY program, as well as by the UiO. During her PhD she contributed to several published works (Tandberg et al., 2018. Zebrafish 15:372; Kumar et al., 2018. Front Cell Infect Microbiol 8:406; Lagos et al., 2017. Fish Shellfish Immunol 67:571; Lampe et al., 2017. Vaccine 35:7264; Oliver et al., 2017. Fron Cell Infect Microbiol 7:420; Lagos et al., 2017. Clin Vaccine Immunol 24:e00557-16; Tandberg et al., 2017. Fish Shellfish Immunol 67:189; Tandberg et al., 2016. PLOS One 11:e0165099; Lampe et al., 2017. Dis Aquat Organ 123:123). Julia was rewarded a prize for best talk at the 2nd International Conference on Fish and Shellfish Immunology 2016, Main, USA. She was later recruited to the position as senior scientist at the fish vaccine company Pharmaq, before she continued her career with GE Healthcare.
Julia Isabel Tandberg | LinkedIn
Dr. Elisabeth O. Lampe (2010-2015)
As a veterinarian with focus on fish health Elisabeth research interested was related to investigating the host-pathogen relationship between the bacterium Francisella noatunensis subsp noatunensis (Fnn) and its host the Atlantic cod. During her PhD work she first constructed a red fluorescent labelled bacterial strain for these studies, before she identified and made several knock-out mutations in potentially important virulence factors in Fnn. Elisabeth spent three months in the laboratory of Prof Anders Sjöstedt at the Molecular Infection Medicine, Umeå, Sweden to learn the ropes of recombinant gene technology in Francisella species. Elisabeth also set up the Dictyostelium-Francisella infection model together with Yannick Brenz, Lydia Hermann and Monica Hagedorn at the Bernhard-Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany. Further, she investigated the vaccine potential of the clpB and iglC Francisella mutant against the disease francisellosis in a Zebrafish vaccine and challenge model. Elisabeth published her PhD work (Lampe et al., 2017. Vaccine 35:7264; Lampe et al., 2017. Dis Aquat Organ 123:123; Lampe et al., 2016 Applied Enviornment Microbiol 82:1586; Brudal et al., 2015. Fish Shellfish Immunol 42:50). Elisabeth was awarded the poster prize for best poster at the 7th International Conference on Tularemia (2012), Beckenridge, USA. Elisabeth later went on to work as a Senior Advisor at the Norwegian Poison Information Centre, Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
Espen Brudal (2009-2014)
Espen was the first in the group to establish methods for creating mutants in the fish pathogen Francisella noatunensis subsp noatunensis (Fnn). He did this in collaboration with the research group of Associate professor Debra Milton and professor Åke Forsberg at Umeå University in Sweden. Using these set of tools Espen was interested in investigating the implication of Type IV pili in pathogenesis of Fnn in Altantic cod. To achieve his goals he first established an infection model for Francisella in both larvae and adult zebrafish (Brudal et al., 2014. Infect Immun 82:2180). This he did in collaboration with the research group of professor Gareth Griffiths (Department of Biosciences, UiO). Espen was also the first to discover and investigate the secretion of outer membrane vesicles from Fnn (Brudal et al., 2015. Fish Shellfish Immunol 42:50). Espens PhD thesis was sponsored by the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Faculty of Veterinary Sciences. Prof Henning Sørum (NMBU) and Dr. Duncan Colquhoun (Norwegian Veterinary Institute) acted as co-supervisors. Espen was after his PhD recruited to the position as senior scientist at the fish vaccine company Pharmaq.
Visiting scientists
Dr. Raj Kumar Thapa (2019-2021)
Raj was a post-doctoral research fellow in the PharmaLuxLab at Department of Pharmacy headed by Prof. Hanne Hjorth Tønnesen. Hanne Hjorth Tønnesen received funding from Research Council of Norway together with Prof Dzung Diep from Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) on a project exploring antimicrobial peptides against bacterial infections. Raj was in charge of formulation the peptides and testing their antimicrobial properties, the latter part which he performed in our P2 lab facility at the Laboratory of microbiology and immunology, Department of Pharmacy. Raj is very talented and well structured. He managed to published several papers during his short time in Oslo. The MicroPath group co-authored three of these paper.
Hybrid hydrogels for bacteriocin delivery to infected wounds - ScienceDirect
Photostability studies of GarKS peptides for topical formulation development - ScienceDirect
Preformulation studies on novel garvicin KS peptides for topical applications - ScienceDirect
Dr. Fabio Antenucci (2019)
We met Fabio for the first time in the conference of the International Society of Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) in Barcelona 2018. We had a common interest of using extracellular membrane vesicles secreted from bacterial species as a vaccine in animal health. Fabio was at the time a post-doc in the lab of Miki Bojesen at University of Copenhagen. Fabio visited our lab to teach us how to isolate membrane vesicles with high integrity using hydrostatic filtration. Later Agnieszka Wrobel, a post-doc in our the lab, visited the Bojesen lab in Copenhagen and applied this technique to the first isolation of membrane vesicles from the bacterium Yersinia ruckeri.
Dr. Cristian Oliver (2017, 2019)
Cristian was a senior research scientist at Universidad de Austral, Chile when he visited us for three months in Oslo. Actually, he visited us twice for three months, first in 2017 and then later in 2019. With Cristian we studied the implication of membrane vesicles secreted from the bacterium Piscirickettsia salmonis in the host-pathogen interaction with its host the Atlantic salmon. In his 2nd stay Cristian had more focus on the possible toxic effect of the lipopolysaccharide of the membrane vesicles. The research stays of Cristian was funded by the Research Council of Norway through the Havbruk Mobility exchange program.
Dr. Anne Vogel (2018)
Anne did her PhD with Prof. Martin Hohmann-Marriott at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). During her PhD she was interested in studying Type IV pili-mediated metal acquisition in cyanobacteria. During her PhD work she visited our lab to perform both transmission and scanning electron microscopy of Synechococcus sp PCC 7002, in collaboration with the Electron microscopy facility at Department of Biosciences, UiO. Anne made some beautiful scanning electron microscopy images that was later rewarded an imaging prize at the Department of Biotechnology (NTNU). Annes PhD thesis was sponsored by the Research Council of Norway through the Fri project program on which our lab was a collaborating partner. After finishin her PhD Anne moved back to The Nederlands first working as a research scientist and later as lecturer in biotechnology at Inholland University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam.
Dr. Javiera Severin Ortiz (2018).
As part of her PhD work at University of Chile, Santiago, Chile, Javiere spent the spring of 2018 in our lab. She set up the Alamar blue assay for detecting cell cytotoxicity from infections of Piscirickettsia salmonis in both salmon cell lines and zebrafish primary cells. This assay as later been used by several researchers in the lab for various assays involving P. salmonis cell infections. Javieras work with us was published in MDPI Microorganisms December 2021.
Dr. Sheemal Kumar (2015)
Sheemal did her PhD in the lab of Dr. Ian Paulsen at MacQuarie University, Sydney, Australia. During her PhD she was interested in setting up a model for studying infections the pathogenesis of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa and fungal species. She spent three month in our lab working with zebrafish larva which resulted in a co-publication of our group together with the group of Ian Paulsen with Sheemal as first author (Kumar et al., 2018. Front Cell Infect Microbiol, 8:406). While her stay in Oslo, Norway, Sheemal had her first try with skies on her feet.
Yannick Brenz (2013 -2014)
Yannick performed his PhD at the Bernhard-Notch Institute for Tropical Medicine, Hamburg, Germany with Dr. Monica Hagedorn as main supervisor. In his studies he contributed in developing the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum (nick-name: Dicty) as an infection model organism for Francisella sp. in collaboration with our research group at Department of Pharmacy. He spent several months in our lab in Oslo learning how to grow Francisella sp and perform imaging analysis of the host-pathogen interaction of Dicty-Francisella. He was awarded the poster prize for best poster at the 8th International Conference on Tularemia in Opatija, Croatia (2015) for his work.
Technicians
Truls Rasmussen (2019-2022)
Sarah Finke (2019)
Ruth Halsne (2017)
Ewa Jaroszewicz (2017-2020)
Mona Gaarder (2015-2017)
Anne-Lise Rishovd (2010-2015)
M.Sc. students
Arfa Irej Qureshi (2022-2023)
M.Sc. thesis: Exploring the landscape of bioinformatic tools for fungal identification in shotgun metagenomic sequencing data: For potential applications in colorectal cancer biomarker discovery.
Ikram Massoudy (2022-2023)
M.Sc. thesis: Isolering og strukturoppklaring av antimikrobielle forbindelser fra gråorbark.
Ahmed Nahil Yasen Ek (2019-2020)
M.Sc. thesis: Effects of different antibiotic treatment lengths on gut microbiota and development of resistance: a PCR and qPCR approach. Co-supervision with Katrine Lekang. First position after finalizing M.Sc. thesis: Pharmacist.
Rebekka Rolfsnes (2019-2020)
M.Sc. thesis: Intracellular bacterial pathogens in aquaculture: vaccines and virulence factors: Analysis of membrane vesicle based vaccine against Piscirickettsia salmonis and evaluation of type IV pili system presence in Francisella noatunensis subsp. noatunensis. Co-supervision with Elia Ciani and Agnieszka Wrobel.
Chirine Issam Kanaan (2018-2019)
M.Sc. thesis: Assessing methods for bioprospecting of marine algae for antimicrobial agents. Co-supervision with Katrine Lekang. First position after finalizing M.Sc. thesis: Pharmacist.
Sanja Bogdanovic (2017-2018)
M.Sc. thesis: Establishment of methods for bioprospecting of marine algae for antimicrobial agents. Co-supervision with Bente Edvardsen (Department of Biosciences, UiO). First position after finalizing M.Sc. thesis: Ambulatory pharmacist.
Mwisa Amani Bulere (2017-2018)
M.Sc. thesis (in Norwegian): Utvikling av vaksineteknologi basert på membranvesikler fra Piscirickettsia salmonis. Co-supervision with Julia I. Tandberg. First position after finalizing M.Sc. thesis: Ambulatory pharmacist.
Diana Truong (2014-2015)
M.Sc. thesis (in Norwegian): Imaging, optimalisert vekst og isolering av yttermembran vesikler fra Piscirickettsia salmonis. Co-supervision with Julia I. Tandberg.
Eva Berger (2013-2014)
M.Sc. thesis: Piscirickettsia salmonis; characterization and infection in the zebrafish model. Co-supervision with Prof Gareth W. Griffiths (Department of Biosciences, UiO). First position after finalizing M.Sc. thesis: Microbiological quality controller in Pharmaq.
Tone Aksnes Lian (2013-2015)
M.Sc. thesis: Ultrastructural characterization of Francisella tularensis subspecies novicida intracellular life cycle in macrophages: Study of bacterial adherence, phagosome maturation and phagosomal escape. Co-supervision with Prof Gareth W. Griffiths and Urska Repnik (Department of Biosciences, UiO). First position after finalizing M.Sc. thesis: Research assistant within cardiovascular disease research, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
Dai Uy Truong (2012-2013)
M.Sc. thesis: Antimicrobial sensitivity for treatment against francisellosis in a Zebrafish infection modell and the characterization of gene expression of virulence factors in the bacteria Francisella noatunensis. Co-supervision with Espen Brudal. First position after finalizing M.Sc. thesis: Pharmacist.
Ida Marie Thrane (2012-2013)
M.Sc. thesis (in Norwegian): Utforsking av faktorer som kan påvirke vekst hos Francisella noatunensis subsp. i laboratoriet og kloning av clpB for funksjonsanalyser av proteinet ClpB hos F. noatunensis subsp noatunensis. Co-supervision with Eliabeth O. Lampe. First position after finalizing M.Sc. thesis: Hospital pharmacist.
Hanh Thi Hieu Phan (2011-2012)
M.Sc. thesis (in Norwegian): Struktur-funksjonsforhold mellom bakteriofagen CTXϕ og Vibrio cholerae type IV pili. First position after finalizing M.Sc. thesis: Pharmacist.
Anne Paulenz Hope (2010-2011)
M.Sc. thesis: Characterisation of the fish pathogen Francisella in cells and zebrafish: Developing an assay for testing the delivery of drugs and vaccines using the nanoparticle system.
Co-supervision with Prof Gareth W. Griffiths.
Kristian Franer (2009-2010)
M.Sc. thesis: Establishment of a microscopical assay to study the structure-function relationship between the bacteriophage CTXφ with Vibrio cholerae Type IV pili. First position after finalizing M.Sc. thesis: Veterinarian.
Summer student and Erasmus+ students
Rebecca Kronseder (2024)
Erasmus+ student from University of Regensburg, Germany. Worked on a project constructing recombinant extracellular vesicles as vaccine for livestock and testing their toxicity in on a fish cell based assay.
Theresa Schneider (2023)
Erasmus+ student from University of Tübingen, Germany. Working on using recombinant extracellular vesicles as vaccines for livestock.
Lara-Kristin Kuhnert (2023)
Erasmus+ student from University of Tübingen, Germany. Working on using recombinant extracellular vesicles as vaccines for livestock.
Elisa Mascherin (2023)
Erasmus + student from University in Trieste, Italy. Working on the outer membrane vesicles as possible vaccine against yersiniosis in fish.
Ellen Beate Tysvær (2022)
UiO Life:Science summerstudent. Investigating potential changes in growth of E. coli and E. coli mutants expressing the Yersinia ruckeri outer membrane proteins A (OmpA) and F (OmpF).
Lucia Mompo Gisbert (2022)
Erasmus+ student from Valencia, Spain. Working on constructing green and red fluorescent versions of Yersinia ruckeri and testing them on fish cell lines.
Nora Haukeland (2021)
UiO, Summer student. Making disruption mutations in membrane proteins of the marine pathogenic bacterium Yersinia ruckeri.
Nangialai Ahmadzai (2018)
UiO, Summer student. Screening chemical compound for antimicrobial activity.
Sara Ahmed (2017)
Erasmus+ student visiting from University of Portsmouth, UK. B.Sc. thesis: Evaluation of potential synthetic and biologically produced antimicrobial compounds: Silver and Gold. Contributed to one publication (Pöthig et al., 2018. Front Chem 6:584). After finishing her B.Sc. program she went on to a master program at the University of Birmingham.