Hvidsten research group

News

What's happening in the group.

2026

  1. April 30: Wanxin Lai defends her PhD thesis! Opponents: Leo Lahti and Eivind Almaas.
  2. April 29: Jenny Merkesvik defends her PhD thesis! Opponents: Yuliaxis Ramayo Caldas and Jaelle C. Brealey.
  3. April 13: Opponent for Omer Ali at UiO.
  4. March 25: Ruman-Innovate funded! MSCA Doctoral Network lead by Chris Creevey.
  5. March 23: BRIDGE funded! NMBU collaboration platform lead by Hilde Vinje.
  6. March 17: Con-TEki is funded by the FRIPRO program!
  7. March 17: BIAS receives the NMBU teaching price!
  8. March 16: Faculty PhD-student funded to develop ComPlEx!
  9. February 26-28: Opponent in Helsinki: Maja Ilievska, Supervisor: Jarkko Salojärvi

2025

  1. December 17-20: Grant writing Nancy, France.
  2. December 12-16: Nat and Tiggy visiting NMBU.
  3. December 1-3: Writing seminar Bengtfors with Siri, Hilde and Åsmund.
  4. November 10-14: HoloGen Training and Networking Retreat 2 in Barcelona!
  5. August 28-September 2: Grant writing Hemavan with Nat and Tiggy.
  6. August 26-27: Grant writing Rømskog.
  7. June 27: Elected as a member of the faculty board 2025-2029. 
  8. June 24-26: Writing seminar Hvaler: Siri, Hilde, Åsmund and Simen.
  9. June 10-11: BIAS seminar in Vollen.
  10. June 5: Last NMBU-FU meeting before stepping down as research leader from August 1st.
  11. May 5-9: HoloGen Training and Networking Retreat 1 in Copenhagen!
  12. April 7: Organized outreach even for 3D-omics.
  13. March 6-7: In Belgium sampling fish for ThreeD (with Simen).
  14. February 27-March 5: Grant writing Hemavan with Nat and Tiggy.

2024

  1. December 13-21: Nat and Tiggy visiting Ås campus.
  2. December 9-13: Organized BIN420 for Holoruminant at campus Ås.
  3. November 18-22: Holoruminant, Caldes de Montbui (Barcelona).
  4. November 7-8: Opponent in Trondheim: Martina Hall.
  5. October 16-17: Forskerutdanningskonferansen 2024 at campus NMBU. Session on AI with Anne Kat Hærland.
  6. September 29-October 2: 3D-omics general assembly, Vienna.
  7. August 16-26: ISME in Cape Town.
  8. June 24-26: Writing seminar with Simen, Åsmund and Siri in Stavern.
  9. June 18: Simen's ThreeD FRIPRO-project funded!
  10. June 6-14: Nat and Tiggy visit again. With PhD student Helena.
  11. May 6-9: Writing seminar with Åsmund in Stavern.
  12. April 9: HoloGen funded! MSCA Doctoral Network.
  13. February 21-23: In Umeå for the Wood Biology PhD course. 
  14. From January 1: Stepping in as prorektor for research for 3.5 months.

2023

  1. December 15-22: Nat and Tiggy back at Ås campus.
  2. November 8-10: Back in Wageningen for the HoloRuminant general assembly.
  3. October 30-31: At Rømskog for the MEMO group retreat.
  4. September 27: In Lund to give a talk at the 12th SPPS PhD Student Conference
  5. September 25-27: Hosting the 3D-omics general assembly at Ås campus.
  6. September 5-8: In Wageningen for the Fish microbiota workshop and ImprovAFish project meeting. 
  7. May 22 - June 3: Visting Bartek Wilczynski at the Institute of Informatics, University of Warsaw.
  8. Marsh 8-12: At the 3D-omics general assembly in Barcelona - with Jenny and Bjørge.
  9. From March 1st: Stepping in as Dean of the faculty for 6 months. 
  10. February 1-14: Visting Phil Pope at the The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

2022

  1. December 10-13. Back at CASP! Antalya, Turkey.
  2. October 24-28. Last NORBIS conference. Back at Rosendal, Hardanger - with Jenny and Wanxin.
  3. September 11-15: 3D'omics General Assembly + 1st Applied HoloGenomics conference, Bilbao, Spain - with Jenny.
  4. October 1: Wanxin Lai starts as a PhD student
  5. August 10-11: BIAS application writing seminar, Fredrikstad,
  6. August 8: Jenny Merkesvik starts as a PhD student - 3D'omics project.
  7. June 13-15; Writing seminar with Siri Fjellheim group, Hvaler.
  8. May 31 - June 6: EURO EVO DEVO, Naples, Italy.

2021

  1. November 28- December 2: Salmon GWAS sampling trip to Dønna.
  2. November 27-28. First travel in over a year. NORBIS conference, Sola, Stavanger.
  3. September 28 - October 1: Doctorial Network EU application writing workshop with Phil and Simen, Støtvig Hotel.
  4. August 26: I started as the head of KBM's Research Committee (FU) on the first of August. First KBM-FU meeting yeasterday and first NMBU-FU meeting today.
  5. August 19: Presentation at Bioinformatics in Bergen, August 18-19, 2021.
  6. August 9: Shashank Gupta starts as a postdoc - ImprovAFish project.
  7. April 13: We publish the salmonid WGD-study in Genome Biology!
  8. March 1: Siri Birkeland starts as a postdoc on the EVOTreee project - fundet by the Research Council of Norway.

    2020

    1. December 15: H2020 projects 3D-omics and HoloRuminant funded! 
    2. December 2: BIAS launches NMBU biostatistics advising service!
    3. August 10: Back at NMBU after a year-long sabbatical at UC Dvais, Brady Lab.
    4. January 11-21: Then straight to PAG, San Diego followed by a visit by Nat and Tiggy in Davis. Nat gave a talk at the TriLab meeting.
    5. January 2-10: Starting out the year strong with a visit to the Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing (PSB) 2020. I last attended this conference in 2001! Great time in Hawaii with my family.

    2019

    1. December 13: Presenting our work on regulatory evolution after whole genome duplication at the TriLab weekly meeting: BradyLab, Kliebenstein-lab and Runcielab.

    2. October 21: Presening our PLoS Genetics paper on the importance of network connectivity on selective constraints to the Integrative Genetics & Genomics Graduate Seminar here at UC Davis.

    3. October 9: Got to present my research projects (Fish ’n’ Chips!) to faculty at the UC Davis Genome Center.

    4. September 5: Presenting the evolution of gene regulation in trees-project (What makes a tree a tree!) to the BradyLab.
    5. August 12: Starting my sabbatical at the Brady Lab, UC Davis, USA.
    6. June 21: Gareth Gillard defending his PhD thesis - cosupervisor Simen Sandve. 

      Title: “Evolution of gene expression following the whole genome duplication in salmonid fish” Opponents: Camille Berthelot and Geir Kjetil Sandve.

    7. June 14: Eivind Kjeka Broen and Cathrine Horntvedt Kristiansen defending their master theses.
    8. June 13: BIAS summer party!
    9. June 7: Tom Harvey defended his PhD thesis - main supervisor Simen Sandve.
    10. June 6: Receiving my Fulbright stipend from Iselin Nybø (Minister of Research and Higher Education) and Richard H. Riley (Deputy Chief of Mission for U.S. Embassy in Oslo) - at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. Quote from Petter Næss (director of Fulbright Norway) about my project: "I am intrigued that the researcher that asks what it means to be a tree is not a philosopher but a (computational) biologist".
    11. June 5: Reviewer for the master thesis defense of Herman K. Netskar, UiO.
    12. May 22: Google X visiting NMBU.
    13. May 12-14: Going to the "Crossroads between transposons and gene regulation"-symposium at The Royal Society, London - with Simen Sandve.
    14. April 3: NMBU visit by Tom Gilbert and Morten Limborg: "Life through the hologenomic window".
    15. March 20-21: Biostatistics workshop at Jeløy.
    16. March 13: Ellen Sandberg and Trygve Almøy hold their retirement seminars at KBM.
    17. March 8: The tverrforsk-paper is finally out in Plant Physiology! With Siri, Simen, Lars and Marian.
    18. March 6: NORBIS board meeting at Gardermoen.
    19. February 25-28: In Umeå to plan sampling and hiring in the FRIPRO projects.
    20. February 20-22: Visiting VIB, Ghent for a prosject with Klaas Vandepoele, Nat Street and Niklas Mähler.
    21. February 14: Big news. STIN100 to be obligatory for students at KBM and BIOVIT. Data analysis and R programming to the masses!
    22. February 6-7: Visiting Mark Stitt at Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Golm for a PhD defense (Camilla Ferrari) and seminar.

    2018

    1. December 21: Christmas dinner with the biostatistics groups at Kumlegaarden, Drøbak.
    2. December 17: Got the Fulbright stipend to cover my sabbatical at UC Davis.
    3. December 6: Our project on the regulatory networks of trees got funded by the FRIPRO-program of the Norwegian Research Council. Collaboration with Nat Street and Klaas Vandepoele.
    4. November 19-21: Visiting Paul Wilmes lab at Université du Luxembourg with Phil Pope.
    5. November 12-18: Visiting Umeå Plant Science Centre.
    6. October 29: The aspen genome paper is out in PNAS! This was the first project I got involved in when I started as an assistant professor in Umeå in 2008.
    7. October 17-19: The yearly NORBIS conference at Voss - with board meeting.
    8. October 12: First collaborating paper with Phil Pope, NMBU, out in the ISME journal.
    9. October 11-12: Acting as an opponent at André Voigt PhD defense, NTNU, Trondheim. Great discussion! With Erzsebet Regan.
    10. September 20-21: Writting seminar at Jeløy Radio to finish the tverrforsk paper. With Simen and Siri.
    11. September 4: Starting up a new course teaching new students the art of data analysis and R!
    12. June 28: «Subfunctionalization versus neofunctionalization after whole-genome duplication». Our commentary is finally out in Nature Genetics!
    13. June 7: KBM science day: presenting the Biostatistics group to the faculty.
    14. Mai 19-28: Trip to North America to visit collaborators: San Francisco State University, Berkeley and University of Victoria - with Simen Sandve.
    15. April 18-20: Simen and I visit  the Odom and Flicek labs in Cambridge.
    16. April 13: Our paper makes the cover of Science.
    17. April 9-13: Spends the week in Umeå including a VIB-STT project meeting.
    18. April 3-4:  Yves Van de Peer from the Centre for Plant Systems Biology at VIB/University of Ghent visiting NMBU.
    19. March 21-22: Going to Bergen for board meeting (NORBIS) and prject meeting (DigiSal).
    20. March 13: Attending an expert group meeting on enabling technologies for DIGITAL21.
    21. March 9: Collaboration with Rishi Bhalerao, Umeå, published in Science: “Photoperiodic control of seasonal growth is mediated by ABA acting on cell-cell communication” or “How do trees know it´s time to take winter vacation”.
    22. March 8: Talking to high school students about big data and machine learning in biology - at "Åpen dag NMBU".
    23. March 1: Taking over as groups leader for the KBM biostatistics group.
    24. February 12: Paper on regulation of salmon liver metabolism out in Molcular Ecology - collaboration with Simen.
    25. January 3: First BioImprove paper out - with researchers at UPSC.

    2017

    1. December 19: Lars Grønvold succesfully defended his thesis. Opponents: Marek Mutwil and Åsa Björklund. Co-supervisors: Siri Fjellheim and Simen Sandve.
    2. December 11-14: Visiting VIB, Ghent and Klaas Vandepoele with Nat Street, Niklas Mähler and Bastian Schiffthaler.
    3. December 4-11: Nathaniel Street and Kathryn Robinson from Umeå Plant Science Centre visit NMBU.
    4. November 8-10: I gave a talk at the third annual conference of NORBIS, Sommarøy,  Tromsø.
    5. October 11: Simen and I are starting up the CIGENE journal club!
    6. September 4-8: The NORBIS course "Bioinformatics for functional metagenomics" at KBM/NMBU with Phil Pope and others.
    7. Agust 19-24: In Umeå for the 50 Years Plant Science in Umeå Symposium.
    8. June 2: The AspWood paper is out in Plant Cell!
    9. June 22-July 4: Going to the Evolution conference in Portland (with a whole gang of NMBUers), then visiting collaborators at UC Davis.
    10. May 18: David Sundell succesfully defended his thesis. Opponent: Klaas Vandepoele. Co-supervisor: Nat Street.
    11. May 17-19: In Umeå for the PhD defense of my student David Sundell.
    12. May 15-16: At Rømskog Spa og Resort to write apllications; with Simen Sandve and Phil Pope.
    13. April 27-28: DigiSal: Workshop at Radisson Blue, Oslo.
    14. April 13: "The eQTL paper" out in PLoS Genetics.
    15. March 20: At Digital Life 2017 - Annual conference, Hotel Bristol, Oslo.
    16. March 9: NORBIS board meeting at Scandic Hell, Tronheim.
    17. February: NorWood published in New Phytologist.
    18. February 6-10: Visiting Umeå Plant Science Centre, Umeå, Sweden.

    2016

    1. December 15-19: Attending WORKSHOP SIBE 2016: Inferring natural selection from genomic data in Ferrara, Italy. With Simen Sandve and Nicola Barson.
    2. December 12: Marian Schubert defends his PhD. Main supervisor: Siri Fjellheim.
    3. December 9: I'm 3. opponent at Hilde Vinje's defense.
    4. October 2-5: Visiting Umeå Plant Science Centre to discuss projects.
    5. September 28: Our eQTL study is available at bioRxiv.
    6. September 14-16: Going to the second NORBIS meeting at Selbusjøen Hotell & Gjestegård.
    7. Spetember 9-10: Presenting bioinformatics to statisticians at the PhD/Post Doc workshop at Klækken.
    8. August 30: Our review article on comparative genomics in trees is published in New Phytologist.
    9. June 24: Visited Oslo Sequencing Centre and reviewed a master thesis with Lex Nederbragt and Kjetill Jakobsen as supervisors.
    10. June 17: Niklas Mähler defended his PhD thesis. My first!
    11. June 7: Back in Trondheim to review a master thesis. Supervisor Finn Drabløs.
    12. June 1-3: Opponent, together with Erzsebet Regan, in the PhD defense of Marius Eidsaa, NTNU, Trondheim.
    13. May 24: I'm 3. opponent at Lars Erik Gangsei's PhD defence.
    14. May 10: Our review on whole genome duplication events is out
    15. May 3-5: Visiting the Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, Scotland.
    16. April 18: Our salmon genome paper appears online at Nature!
    17. April 4-6: NGS16 Genome annotation meeting in Barcelona, Spain.
    18. March 31-April 2: Skiing trip with the biostatistics group at Norefjell.
    19. March 7-17: Nathaniel Street visits NMBU to work on papers.
    20. March 1-2: Kick-off meeting for the Digital Salmon project at Gardermone airport and then off to Umeå to discuss wood development.
    21. February 19: NORBIS board meeting at Gardermoen.
    22. January 1-5: Visiting Umeå and Uppsala. The old spruce gang is back together!

    2015

    1. December 14-15: Visited VIB in Ghent: meet with Dirk Inzé, Klaas Vandepoele and others.
    2. December 9-11:  Next Generation Sequencing Symposium, Helsinki, Finland.
    3. November 20-28: Going to Vermont to visit Siri Fjellheim who is on sabatiacal in Jill Preston's lab. With Lars, Marian and Simen.
    4. October 28-30: Went to the first annual meeting for the national research school in bioinformatics, biostatistics and systems biology (NORBIS) with Niklas, Lars and Gareth. I also attended the board meeting. Rosendal, Hardangerfjorden.
    5. October 6: Simen and I write about gene duplication in Aftenposten.
    6. September 30: DigiSal is funded!
    7. September 28: The spruce meta-transcriptomics paper i out.
    8. September 25: Ogonna Obudulu (main supervisor Prof. Gunnar Wingsle) defends his PhD thesis in front of a full house.
    9. September 21-26: Niklas and I visit Umeå Plant Science Centre. Ogonna to defend his thesis on Friday.
    10. September 9: Opponent at BMC in Uppsala (Helgi Schiöth's group). In the neighboring room of where I defended my PhD thesis almost 11 years ago. The circle is complete. Also visited the new SciLifeLab building. Many familiar faces.
    11. September 8: New PhD student starts in my group: Gareth Gillard. He will be working on salmon transcriptomics.
    12. July 20: PlantGenIE paper is published.
    13. June 7-13: IUFRO Tree Biotechnology Conference, Florence, Italy.
    14. June 4-5: Opponent at PhD defence in Bergen.
    15. April 27-29: Startup meetings for Siri Fjellheim's NFR-funded "Emperors of the Sun"-project. Visitors Jill Preston from Vermont University, USA and Ben Travaskis from CSIRO, Australia.
    16. April 10-18: Going to Recomb in Warsaw (and to visit Bartek Wilczynski) and then to Uppsala for a PhD defence (and to visit Claes Andersson and Mats Gustafsson).
    17. March 16: Open PhD student position (salmon genomics) in my group.
    18. March 16-20: Niklas and I spent the week at Umeå Plant Science Centre.
    19. March 5: Simen and I write in Aftenposten about how plants and animals survive the cold winter.
    20. March 3: Our RNA-Seq analysis protocol is avaiable at EpiGeneSys.
    21. February 16-20: Nathaniel Street and Kathryn Robinson from Umeå Plant Science Centre visit NMBU.

    2014

    1. November 24: The Synergy paper is out.
    2. November 3-7: Niklas and I go to the the aspen genome workshop outside Umeå.
    3. October 16: Simen and I write about association studies in Aftenposten.
    4. October 16: The "sex paper" with Nat Street's group is finally published.
    5. September 30: Dinner in Oslo to celebrate the wheat papers in Science.
    6. September 22: Ten years since I defended my PhD.
    7. September 15-19: Niklas and I spent the week at Umeå Plant Science Centre discussing projects.
    8. September 15: I'm appointed Guest professor at Umeå Plant Science Centre.
    9. September 15: Launch of this website.