Michael Mæng

Michael Mæng says: “Patients with coronary heart disease have a substantial risk of recurrent events such as myocardial infarction, stroke, and premature death. This increased risk is present despite optimal treatment. The aim of our project is to examine the interplay between this increased risk of recurrent events and the presence of prediabetes, diabetes, and novel cholesterol lipoproteins using a large cohort based primarily on the Western Denmark Heart Registry with long-term follow-up and dedicated intravascular imaging of coronary atherosclerosis.  We want to: 1) estimate the risk associated with having prediabetes, 2) to examine why diabetes is associated with a two-fold risk of myocardial infarction, and 3) to examine how novel cholesterol lipoproteins in the blood influences a) cholesterol content in the coronary plaques and b) the following risk of myocardial infarction.”

Michael Mæng is senior consultant at the Department of Cardiology, Aarhus University Hospital, and associate professor at Aarhus University since 2016.

Christian Lodberg Hvas

Christian Lodberg Hvas: “The intestinal microbiota is pivotal for human health. While microbiota may be disrupted by antibiotics or intestinal disease, it may be restored by faecal microbiota transplantation, called FMT. In severe diarrhea caused by the bacteria C. difficile, FMT may cure up to 90% of the patients. Some vitamins or minerals may also improve the microbiota. I wish to explore how FMT and specific vitamins or minerals exert their positive effects on the microbiota. This is done by scientific studies and by clinical trials. For FMT to become available to all patients in need, the basis for a suitable legislation is needed. I wish to contribute to that during European research collaborations. The vision in the project is to save lives and improve nutrition through modulation of the intestinal microbiota, for the direct benefit of patients with intestinal diseases.”

Christian Lodberg Hvas is consultant gastroenterologist at Department of Hepatology and Gastroenterology, Aarhus University Hospital, and associate professor at Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, since 2016.

Photo: Poul Ib Henriksen

Jesper B. Andersen

Jesper B. Andersen says: “In Europe, the bile duct cancer incidence has increased 236% since 1980, with regional difference rising 7-fold over the past decade. Whereas cancer mortality has declined and therapy in other cancers improved, surgical resection still remains the only curative option for this patient group. The disease is often sporadic with unknown etiology, and patients are diagnosed at late-stage with locally advanced or metastatic disease, and a 5-year prognosis below 10%. In my research program, I will determine the viral exposures in a patient’s life and use these unique molecular footprints as guides to define the trigger of chronic inflammation and cancer. B cells are our humoral guardians responding to infections by producing antibodies. Yet, their pathobiological role and molecular states in contact with tumor cells are unknown. Thus, determining novel B cell tumor evasion mechanisms in bile duct cancer will allow us to start to develop specific B cell targets.”

Jesper B. Andersen is Danish, but has had his early career in the US, where he did his PhD and postdoc. In 2014 he was recruited as an associate professor to University of Copenhagen, and he was tenured in 2020.

Julien Duxin

Julien Duxin says: “DNA-protein crosslinks (DPCs) are dangerous lesions found in our genome. If not repaired, DPCs cause aging and cancer in humans. Moreover, most chemotherapeutics used in the clinic kill cancer cells by generating DPCs. Despite their relevance to humans, we know little about how these lesions are repaired. A major difficulty is to reliably monitor DPCs in cells, which is currently not possible using existing methods. To bypass this barrier, we have recently used protein extracts derived from frog eggs to recapitulate DPC repair in a test tube. This unique approach allowed us to uncover the existence of specialized processes operating in our cells that remove DPCs and thereby prevents cancer and aging. Because these lesions are incredibly diverse, we are now proposing to use our unique approach to study the repair of the major classes of DPCs so that we can establish overarching principles of how these lesions are sensed and removed from the genome.”

Julien Duxin is of French Nationality, with both a PhD and a postdoctoral stay in the US. In 2016 he was recruited as an associate professor to University of Copenhagen.

Andrew Williams

Andrew Williams: “There is increasing evidence that diet and the gut microbiota may interact to regulate the immune system, and how the body responds to infection. Disturbances in this complex relationship may result in chronic infections or autoimmune diseases.Dietary fibre promotes a healthy gut microbiota and may reduce chronic inflammation. However, we have discovered that in some contexts high levels of fibre may increase susceptibility to infection with intestinal parasites. Given that parasitic worms infect more than a billion people worldwide and represent a major public health concern, there is a pressing need to undertsand this interaction. Here, we will use mice and pigs to model the infectious process to investigate how dietary fibre changes the gut microbiota and alters the immune response.”

Andrew Williams is British with a PhD from Australia and has been associate professor at University of Copenhagen since 2017.

Katrine Schjoldager

Katrine Schjoldager says: “Bioactive peptides (neuropeptides and peptide hormones) are key regulators of numerous physiological processes from blood glucose levels to blood pressure, mood and perception of pain. Dysfunctional bioactive peptide (BP) signalling is associated with a number of diseases including diabetes, Alzheimers and hypertension, and BPs constitute a major class of promising druggable compounds. Understanding how peptide signalling is modulated in health and disease is therefore of great importance. My team has discovered that a large number of bioactive peptides are modified with sugar-moieties, and we want to establish new and improved methods and a deeper understanding of how these sugar-modifications effect or regulate the functions of the bioactive peptides. The project has significant promise for discovery of novel designs for peptide therapeutics for a range of common diseases.”

Katrine Schjoldager is Danish and has been an associate professor at University of Copenhagen since 2018

Nanna Bjarnholt

Fungal diseases devastate crops worldwide and challenge global food security. They are unpredictable and difficult to manage, which is exacerbated by climate change. Cereal staple crops are strongly affected by Fusarium species, which both decrease yields and introduce harmful toxins to infected grain. The main toxin, DON, can be detoxified by plants, sometimes contributing to resistance to the fungi, but the detoxification can be unstable in the guts of humans and animals that may still suffer adverse effects from eating infected grain. A new mechanism for Fusarium resistance via DON detoxification was recently discovered in a wild grass, but it is unknown if it is stable. The key hypothesis of CerealGSTs is that GST mediated detoxification indeed can lead to stable DON inactivation and that especially oat is a promising source of new genomic tools to achieve this. The aim is to identify the involved genes and provide sustainable solutions to improve global food security and safety.

Fernando Geu-Flores

Faba bean is a protein crop with high yield potential that thrives in cold, northern climates. It seeds accumulate high levels of protein, antioxidants, and micronutrients making it an ideal crop for inclusion in plant-based food systems in Scandinavia. However, faba bean seeds also accumulate high levels of condensed tannins and phytic acid, which are anti-nutrients that have a negative impact on the uptake of proteins and micronutrients. NutriFaba will characterize the biochemical pathways producing these anti-nutrients throughout seed development. We will then use biotechnological approaches to reduce the anti-nutrient levels in seeds without affecting the antioxidant capacity or the agronomic performance. In summary, NutriFaba will push the boundaries of faba bean anti-nutrient research and help develop highly nutritious varieties that will take part in the sustainable food systems of the future.

Carsten Werner Mueller

Soils not only provide the basis for human life, soils are also important to meet climate mitigation and biodiversity goals at regional, and even global scales. To reach these goals soil organic carbon plays a central role. For the storage and stability of soil carbon, plants and their roots are an important regulating factor. This regulation is based on the complex interplay of plant roots, soil microorganisms and soil particles. Although we know of the importance of roots, we still do not fully understand how plant root characteristics, for instance root length or chemical composition, affect the stability of soil carbon and the release of greenhouse gases. We also still lack an understanding of the underlying processes between plants, microorganisms and soil particles. The project will provide both, the fundamental scientific understanding of how plant roots regulate soil carbon storage and greenhouse gas emissions, and practical proxies to be used in future agricultural management to sustain healthy and productive soils.

Maria Sammalkorpi

A pressing need for renewable, biodegradable, yeast or bacteria culture produced biosynthetic materials exists in our society. Specifically, self-organizing biosynthetic structural protein materials could induce a green revolution in fiber, textile, and composite industries. These materials also offer breakthroughs in pharmaceutical materials, especially as support and host matrices but also triggered gel-solid transition systems, and sustainable solutions for alimentation industry. Living cells control structural material self-organization and materials properties via non-equilibrium processes such as material flows and dynamically evolving assemblies. The HACMAT project targets design principles for advanced biosynthetic protein materials that self-organize in a non-equilibrium, active condensate phase. HACMAT uses computational modelling combined with experimental characterization.

Photo credit: Aalto University/Mikko Raskinen