Zosen LabNCMBM · University of Oslo

People

A research programme in formation

This is currently one person and an open door. The positions below are not filled, and the honest version of that is more useful to anyone considering joining than a padded team page.

Principal investigator

Denis Zosen, PhD, MBA

Guest Researcher, Norwegian Centre for Molecular Biosciences and Medicine, University of Oslo

I work on what happens to the developing human brain when a drug or a pollutant arrives, and on why the answer has been so hard to pin to a moment in time. That question has followed me through four countries and two very different model systems. It started with p53 and the MAPK cascade in St Petersburg, where I found that the same signalling that pushes a cell to differentiate also restrains what it secretes — the direction of a drug effect depends on the state the cell is in.

During my doctorate in Oslo I built a chicken embryo model to ask where drugs actually reach in the developing brain, and showed that they arrive within minutes at clinically relevant concentrations, with penetration depending on developmental stage. Twice since then I have watched a single endpoint point the wrong way: antiepileptics with different morphological signatures converging on one transcription factor, and antidepressants raising the reassuring molecular marker while cutting neurite outgrowth. That is why the current work reads several orthogonal endpoints in the same cells rather than trusting any one of them.

Alongside the bench work I have spent time where preclinical evidence is actually used, in drug development and clinical research. I have watched how that evidence is weighed when a real decision about human exposure has to be made, and where it fails to answer the question being asked of it. The programme I am building is aimed at that failure.

Career

  • 2026 –Guest Researcher, NCMBM, University of OsloNorwegian node of the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine
  • 2024 –Clinical research: trial portfolio coordination and safety oversight, OsloSafety subject matter expert and Local Safety Officer across phase II and III trials in Norway and Ireland
  • 2023 – 2024Project lead, health-technology research project, OsloEvidence platform for oncology clinicians and patients; led a team of clinicians, engineers and data scientists
  • 2018 – 2022Doctoral Researcher, Neurobiology and Toxicology Lab, University of OsloFour preclinical programmes; five of my twelve papers; two research grants; taught four core courses
  • 2021Innovation Fellow, industry research centre, DarmstadtLed five scientists from idea to proof of concept; secured €250,000 in seed funding
  • 2017 – 2018Visiting Researcher, Developmental Biology Lab, Biocenter Oulu, University of OuluWnt signalling in CNS development; CRISPR editing, iPSC-derived organoids, imaging — on funding I secured myself
  • 2018Short-Term Scientific Mission Researcher, Norwegian Centre for Stem Cell Research, Oslo University HospitaliPSC differentiation, cerebral organoid and spinal cord production; EU COST Action BIONECA
  • 2012 – 2017Junior Researcher, Comparative Biochemistry of Cellular Functions Lab, Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry RAS, St PetersburgCell signalling and molecular mechanisms of development and pathology

Education

  • 2022PhD in Pharmaceutical Biosciences, University of OsloAction of Neuroactive Pharmaceuticals in Neurodevelopmental Models. Supervisor Prof. Ragnhild E. Paulsen; co-supervisors Prof. Joel C. Glover and Dr Sigrid Bjørnstad. Defended 14 December 2022
  • 2023MBA, Quantic School of Business and TechnologyZenith Award for Academic Excellence; top 20% of class
  • 2021University Pedagogical Basic Competence, LINK, University of Oslo200+ hours of certified pedagogical training
  • 2016MSc in Cell Biology, Cytology, Histology & Immunology, Saint Petersburg State UniversityMagna cum laude; Best Master's Thesis award
  • 2014BSc in Physiology and Biomedicine, Saint Petersburg State UniversityL. A. Orbeli scholarship for student research, 2013–2015

Funding won as applicant

  • 2021Seed funding, €250,000 — Merck KGaA Innovation Center, DarmstadtAdvanced Cell Models innovation project
  • 2020 – 2021Research grant, NOK 34,000 — S. G. Sønneland Foundation, Oslo“3D or not 3D? Approaching human neurodevelopment in a dish”
  • 2019, 2021Research analysis grants, 2 × NOK 30,000 — University of Oslo
  • 2018Short-term scientific mission grant, €4,500 — EU COST Action BIONECA CA16122iPSC differentiation, cerebral organoids and spinal cord
  • 2017 – 2018Research visit grant, ~€27,000 — Finnish National Agency for EducationFunctions of Wnt secreted signals in central nervous system development

Recognition

  • 2023, 2025Selected as one of 100 global leaders, Global Biotech Revolution forum, University of Cambridge
  • 2025Invited panel speaker, DLN Research School Conference20+ poster and oral presentations at international conferences, 2015–2022
  • 2021 – 2022Social Media Ambassador, Federation of European Neuroscience SocietiesCross-disciplinary neuroscience for a community of 5,000+ members

Supervision and teaching

Certified university lecturer with more than 200 hours of pedagogical training, teaching pharmacy students in Norwegian and medical students in cell biology and histology.

What I have supervised

  • Two MSc theses to completion at the University of Oslo and three BSc theses at Saint Petersburg State University, each from project design through bench work, analysis, writing and defence
  • Ten or more doctoral and postdoctoral researchers mentored through The Science Mentors, 2020–2024
  • Visiting and Erasmus students, each on a defined project with their own deliverables
  • Four core courses taught at the Department of Pharmacy: pharmacology and physiology, pharmaceutical biochemistry, pharmaceutical microbiology, and research preparation

How I work with students

I start two students at the same time wherever I can. They share the early experiments and the early workload, which means nobody is alone at the bench in their first weeks, and in practice they push each other to do better before their projects diverge.

Most of the supervision in a wet lab is practical: guiding hands, troubleshooting, and short colloquium-style sessions going through what is coming next and where it usually goes wrong. Beyond that, I want students to connect the facts they were taught to the experiment actually in front of them, and I build in tasks that reach past the immediate project, because most of them will not stay in academia.

Alumni

Where people went next. This section grows as the group does.

  • 2021MSc, University of Oslo“Valproate increases viability and expression of PAX6 in clinically relevant concentrations: studies in the chick embryo, SH-SY5Y and PC12 cells”
  • 2017BSc, Saint Petersburg State University“Characterization of neural stem cells derived from Krushinskii–Molodkina rats, which have a genetic predisposition to audiogenic seizures” — graded A