The Generative Brain

Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Trondheim

NINA is an independent Norwegian research foundation that studies nature and how people and nature interact, set up in 1988 and based in Trondheim with branch offices in Tromso, Lillehammer, Bergen and Oslo. It is not a prion laboratory. Its place in the atlas comes from wildlife ecology work on chronic wasting disease (CWD) after the first European case was found in a wild reindeer in Nordfjella in 2016. A NINA wildlife veterinarian co-authored that first case report, and NINA staff later appear on papers about the Nordfjella cull, surveillance design, reindeer genetics, sheep exposure and the 2022 humanized mouse study of Norwegian CWD. With the Norwegian Veterinary Institute it carried out the practical CWD survey work in 2016 and 2017 for the Norwegian Food Safety Authority and the Norwegian Environment Agency, and it helped estimate the Nordfjella herd before the cull. Animal health and wildlife management side only. Information only, not medical or veterinary advice.

Key facts

  • NINA is registered as a foundation in Trondheim, founded on 1 September 1988 as the continuation of the research department of the Directorate for Nature Management and the applied ecology programme Okoforsk; its stated purpose is applied ecological research for public environmental management, business and others.
  • In an April 2025 vacancy notice NINA described itself as having more than 350 employees from over 30 countries, with its main office next to NTNU in Trondheim and branches in Tromso, Lillehammer, Bergen and Oslo.
  • NINA is one of the author institutions on the 2016 Veterinary Research paper reporting the first CWD case in Europe, in a free-ranging Norwegian reindeer, through a co-author affiliated to NINA; the other partners were the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and APHA Weybridge.
  • The Norwegian Veterinary Institute and NINA did the practical CWD survey and surveillance work in 2016 and 2017 on commission from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority and the Norwegian Environment Agency, reported jointly as NINA Report 1522 and Veterinary Institute report 13 of 2018.
  • Before the Nordfjella zone 1 cull, researchers from NINA, the University of Oslo and the Veterinary Institute estimated the herd at about 2150 animals; 2027 had been culled by March 2018, when the institute reported the cull finished two months early after an 18th reindeer case.
  • Two NINA-affiliated researchers wrote the 2018 Nature Ecology and Evolution commentary on the reindeer cull as a way to stop CWD in Europe.
  • NINA researchers co-wrote the 2020 Nature Communications model of proactive hunting surveillance, which targets animals more likely to carry CWD and reached a 99 percent probability of freedom from infection in reindeer in 3 to 5 years against about 10 years for ordinary harvest; a NINA author organised the reindeer surveillance data collection.
  • That paper records follow-up in the neighbouring Nordfjella zone 2: an extra cull of 52 adult reindeer by Norwegian Environment Agency marksmen in winter 2019 and extended hunting seasons, raising certainty of freedom from infection from 63 to 86 percent.
  • A NINA researcher is a co-author of the 2022 Wadsworth paper in which mice expressing human prion protein did not develop disease after challenge with Norwegian reindeer and moose CWD.
  • NINA authors appear on a 2022 study that found no prions in gut lymphoid tissue of 425 lambs and 78 adult sheep that had grazed alongside the infected Nordfjella reindeer herd, in which 19 positive animals were found.
  • A Europe PMC affiliation search lists NINA authors on further CWD work through 2024, including PRNP gene variation in wild reindeer and other cervids, risk-based surveillance and freedom-from-disease estimates for semi-domesticated reindeer in Norway and Sweden, CWD prion movement in soils and sporadic CWD in old moose.

Timeline

  1. 1988NINA founded as a foundation, continuing the research department of the Directorate for Nature Management.
  2. 2016First European CWD case, in a Norwegian wild reindeer, published with a NINA co-author.
  3. 2018Veterinary Institute reports the Nordfjella zone 1 cull finished early; NINA had helped estimate the herd beforehand.
  4. 2018NINA-affiliated authors publish the reindeer cull commentary in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
  5. 2019Extra winter cull of 52 adult reindeer begins in Nordfjella zone 2 (January to April 2019).
  6. 2020Hunting strategies for CWD detection published in Nature Communications with NINA authors.
  7. 2021Wadsworth humanized mouse paper on Norwegian CWD, with a NINA co-author, appears online in J Infect Dis.
  8. 2022Study of sheep exposed to the infected reindeer herd published with NINA authors.
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