Fergal O’Farrell, Associate Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences (BIO) in Bergen.
Awarded a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2008. The work was based on the use of the Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly, bananflue på Norsk) model to study gene function and peripheral nervous system development. Post-doctoral studies continued with the fruit fly as a genetic model in Stockholm University in the lab of Professor Christos Samakovlis at the Wenner Gren Institute/Stockholm University examing Receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) signalling during development, characterising the function of an RTK related to mammalian proto-oncogene Rearranged during Transfection (Ret).
Following a move to Norway and the Oslo Cancer Institute in 2011, research continued with Drosophila and Ret, in addition to other work together with Professors Stenmark and Rusten establishing and characterising different cancer models and investigating the influence of vesicle transport to tumor development. Thsi work was supported by personally awarded funding from Kreftforengingen (the Norwegian cancer society) as well as funding through the SFF center-of-excellence, CanCell. Following a move to Bergen in 2020, research is now focused on understanding factors that influence the spreading of tumor cells from the site of origin (early stages of metastasis) still making use of the Drosophila Ret-tumor-model, with an aim to use this knowledge towards furthering our understanding of cancer and it’s prevention.