Presentation
Advances in biotechnology and bioinformatics have made genome sequencing fast, accurate and relatively inexpensive. As an example, the Norwegian Sequencing Centre at OUS (Ullev?l) and UiO (Dept of Biosciences) has the capacity of sequencing 112 human genomes per day. This development has not only spurred human genomics, but also biodiversity genomics. The global initiative The Earth BioGenome Project (EBP) embracing regional funded projects such as Biodiversity Genomics Europe (Horizon Europe) and several ongoing national projects including Darwin Tree of Life (UK), Atlas of the Sea (France), Yggdrasil (Denmark) and EBP-Norway altogether represent tremendous efforts to make complete catalogues of genomes across the world. The Norwegian initiative EBP-Nor has succeeded in establishing the needed sequencing infrastructure, computational and bioinformatics pipelines and will by mid-2025 have finalised 150 genomes of species present in Norway. EBP-Nor is now planning for a second phase by scaling up 10-15 times the number of species, and include targeted projects utilising the power of the genome information generated.
For the second phase, a major goal will be to involve the public sector including resource management, environmental and wildlife organisations and public monitoring programs – as well as relevant industry within the energy-, bioproduction-, biotechnology- and biomedical/pharma sector. In the new Life Science Building (under construction) most of the relevant academic research groups and sequencing facilities will be joint positioned in a common building, and along with the initiative for establishing Oslo Science City should be a great opportunity. These issues will be elaborated on and discussed in the talk.
Finally, Anne Maria Eikeset from the Oil Fund will comment on why the management of climate and nature risks is important for the fund and other investors, knowledge gaps and investment opportunities, and in what way innovative projects like this is relevant for the fund.
Speakers
Anne Maria (Mia) Eikeset is the Lead Researcher at Norges Bank Investment Management. In this role, she develops analyses and scenarios to manage the fund's exposure to climate and nature-related risks across various asset classes, and advises internal investment teams on integrating these risks and opportunities into investment decisions. Her expertise extends to financial analysis, where she sources and develops investment cases in equities and renewable infrastructure, spanning sectors such as energy, industrials, heavy industries, basic materials, and life sciences. Previously, Mia served as a Research Professor at the University of Oslo, specializing in ecology, evolution, and economics, and was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University.