University of Oslo

The Department of Nutrition is located in the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in the University of Oslo. Research interests in the department are focused on three areas: antioxidants, DNA damage and nutrition-related cancers; obesity, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome; and nutritional epidemiology and primary prevention. Professor Andrew Collins has many years’ experience in DNA damage and repair, and recently co-ordinated the EC Concerted Action ESCODD which brought to light serious problems in measurement of oxidative DNA damage and highlighted the need for validated biomarkers. His group has made many innovations in the comet assay, and developed novel molecular approaches to nutritional epidemiology. He has about 180 publications.

Principal scientific personnel

A. Collins, PhD; S. Shaposhnikov, PhD; T. Langleite, MSc; T. Veggan, Ing.

Recent publications

1. Collins, A.R. et al. (2003) Nutritional modulation of DNA repair in a human intervention study. Carcinogenesis 24, 511-515.
2. Collins, A.R. (2004) The comet assay for DNA damage and repair, Molec. Biotech. 26, 249-261.
3. Horváthová, E. et al. (2004) DNA damage and repair measured in different genomic regions using the comet assay with fluorescent in situ hybridisation. Mutagenesis 19, 269-276.
4. Collins, A.R. (2005) Assays for oxidative stress and antioxidant status: applications to research into biological effectiveness of polyphenols. Amer. J. Clin. Nutr. 81, 261S-267S.
5. ESCODD et al. (2005) Establishing the background level of base oxidation in human lymphocyte DNA: results of an interlaboratory validation study. FASEB J. 19, 82-84.