The Neuro-SysMed laboratory
The Neuro-SysMed laboratory provides critical infrastructure required to support the clinical and translational research taking place at the Centre. The offices and the laboratory benches of the Neuro-SysMed laboratory currently host more than 40 people, including laboratory engineers and researchers at all levels, from master-level students to senior scientists. The Neuro-SysMed laboratory comprises a state-of-the-art wet-lab and computational facilities. We have a dedicated Lab Manager, Hanne-Linda Nakkestad, in charge of the day-to-day management of the facilities, in addition to technicians assisting with sample processing from the clinical trials as well as with translational research.
The wet-lab facilities include the following functional units:
- General purpose molecular biology laboratory.
- Tissue processing and morphology/microscopy laboratory.
- Cell-culture facilities.
- Biomarker facility including a Simoa Quanterix digital biomarker detection platform.
- Genomics facility, including a dedicated 10X Chromium platform for high-throughput parallel single-cell analyses.
- Seed-amplification assay (SAA) equipment.
- Ultra-freezer facility hosting a human brain and tissue bank.
- Nanoparticle tracking analyses (NTA) for Extracellular vesicles (EVs) characterisation (NanoSight)
The computational unit comprises expert bioinformaticians who perform a complete range of big data analyses – from raw-data pre-processing to sophisticated supervised and unsupervised analytical approaches. This unit is managed by Gonzalo Sanchez Nido and Dimitrios Kleftogiannis.
Clinical Trials Unit
At the heart of Neuro-SysMed are the clinical trials. The Centre has 37 investigator-initiated clinical trials in addition to several industry-sponsored trials. To administer this substantial number of trials, we have a full-time clinical coordinator, Ingunn Anundskås, as part of our core team, in addition to our twelve research nurses and part-time coordinators from HUH’s R&D department. Practical planning of the clinical trials (including protocols, ethics approvals, site recruitment, monitoring, etc.), patient recruitment and execution, and data monitoring and analysis are coordinated by our clinical trials unit together with the PI of each study.
We have a dedicated medicine room, administered by our medication coordinator for the storage, packaging, and labelling of trial medications. The unit plans trials initiated by Neuro-SysMed PIs in collaboration with external investigators or the industry, enabling patient participation in national and international multi-centre trials. The Research and Development Department at Haukeland University Hospital assists in coordinating and negotiating industry-sponsored clinical studies.
Neuro-SysMed administration
Centre directors are Kjell-Morten Myhr and Charalampos Tzoulis, while Yamila Torres Cleuren has the overarching management responsibility of the Centre, taking care of both pre- and post-award phases of our external funding and leading our research and innovation strategy. Mona Machrouh is the administrative coordinator (50%) for the Centre (in 1 year maternity leave from the summer of 2025). In addition to the personnel actively involved with the laboratory, data, and clinical trials coordination and management, Neuro-SysMed has a Communications Officer in 30 % (Eli Vidhammer) and a Research School Coordinator in 20 % (Agnete Engelsen). The administration is further supported by administrative teams from the host and partner institutions regarding economy, HR, and general administration.