As a Centre of Excellence we foster new talents and gives young scientists the opportunity to grow and flourish.
PRIMA mentor program
In 2024, PRIMA launched its Mentor Program, guided by two distinguished advisors with complementary expertise: Prof Emerita Inger Sandlie and Hanne Mette Dyrlie Kristensen.
In 2025, we extended the program and established a common mentor pool with another Norwegian Centre of Excellence, CanCell.
Many of our young scientists participate in courses arranged by the University of Oslo in grant writing, innovation, project management, supervision and communicating research.
Prof Emerita Inger Sandlie
With a long career in academia at the University of Oslo, Inger Sandlie has served as co-director of a Center of Excellence (2007-2017). She is an innovative scientist and co-founder of Vaccibody (now Nykode Therapeutics AS), Nextera AS, and Authera AS. Leader of the Advisory Board for OUH Comprehensive Cancer Centre, and board member at the transfer technology office Inven2 and the Radforsk Evergreen Fund.
Hanne Mette Dyrlie Kristensen
As VP Business Development, Investor Relations and Collaboration in The Life Science Cluster and a board member at the Medical Faculty, Hanne Mette Kristensen brings extensive experience in entrepreneurship, innovation management, and policymaking. She has previously served on the Board of Directors of Oslo Cancer Cluster and Norway Health Tech, had C-level positions in several biotechs and is a NOME mentor.
Role of Mentors:
- Advisors: Sharing career experience and knowledge.
- Supporters: Providing emotional and moral encouragement, advise on life/work balance.
- Tutors: Offering specific feedback on performance.
- Masters: Guiding Apprentices.
- Models: Serving as role models for identity.
Many young scientists at PRIMA aspire to careers in academia. However, career opportunities for PhDs and postdocs extend beyond academia to sectors such as research institutes, startups, industry, and governmental bodies. Specializations can range from R&D to regulatory, quality, business development, patents, strategy, and more. A PhD provides a solid foundation for further competence development in these areas.
Synergy Grants
PRIMA provides seed grants to young scientists to foster collaboration between groups and start up new projects in a “bottom-up” fashion
With great success, several projects have been granted smaller seed funding to initiate new projects and test ideas. This creates opportunity for the young scientists to strengthen their network and provide data for applications of external funding for new upcoming projects. Until now, PRIMA has supported 6 synergy grants, including 2 new grants in 2025.
Mobility support
PRIMA supports international mobility to go abroad to other laboratories to learn new methods and collaborate with international groups.
Visiting other international laboratories is an excellent way of creating networks and learning new methods that benefits the PRIMA projects. In 2025, PRIMA supported young scientists for research stays abroad in the Netherlands and United Kingdom
Interplay between natural killer cell and regulatory T cells subsets in the tumor microenvironment
Synergy grant 05
Project lead: Giovanna Perinetti Casoni
Collaborative researchers: Ivana Spasevska and Herman Netskar
Supercharging T/NK-cell products for cell therapy with germline GOF mutations, SNV
Synergy grant 06
Project lead: Lorenzo Federico
Collaborative researchers: Anna Zofia Komisarczuk, Shiva Dahal-Koirala
Lilli Theres Eilertsen Bay
Mobility
Research stay in the laboratories of Dr. Will McEwans and Dr. Leo C. James at the University of Cambridge, UK.
Mirjam Dürkoop
Mobility
Research stay at Suzan Rooijakkers' group at the Department for Microbiology at UMC Utrecht, the Netherlands