Lærke Gasbjerg

When you eat, food is digested by the intestines and transferred to the blood. The blood stream transports the digested food to organs of your body which for example need food as an energy source. Eating is therefore essential and when you eat, the blood volumen is increased in the abdominal area to support the digestion and transport digested food. But for some people, this phenomenon leads to symptoms such as dizziness, raised pulse, and fainting. They suffer from low blood pressure called postprandial hypotension and are challenged by eating due to the invalidating symptoms. With this Novo Nordisk Foundation Investigator Grant, I will establish my research group at University of Copenhagen and Rigshospitalet (Copenhagen) and study blood volumen changes in two patient groups with modern imaging techniques (MRI) and also, study the mechanism as well as evaluate treatment options in animals based on hormones that we know are related to blood volume changes during eating.

Sindre Lee-Ødegård

South Asians are at a substantially higher risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) compared with white Europeans, especially when living in regions with a westernized lifestyle. South Asians often develop T2DM 5–10 years earlier than westerns, and at a lower body mass index (BMI). This project aims to consider the complete mechanistic pathway from gene to phenotype explaining T2DM development in migrant south Asians, particularly in those with lower age and BMI. Our results will help to develop ethnic-specific strategies to reduce T2DM-risk. I propose a deep phenotyping study of young Nordic and south Asian women living in Norway, with a history of gestational diabetes placing them at high risk of T2DM. Investigations include among others the hyperinsulinemic euglyemic clamp with c-peptide deconvolution, CT-scans, blood, muscle and fat sampels for multi-omics, and randomized controlled trials including lifestyle interventions, GLP-1-analogs and SGLT2-inhibitors. This will enable new or improved treatments that target T2DM defects more precisely, with fewer side effects.

Alastair Kerr

Excess energy is stored in the adipose tissue as fat to be used when the body demands. In obesity the fat tissue become dysfunctional, leading to a higher uncontrolled release of fat into the circulation. The fat released accumulates in other tissues and drives the development of type-2 diabetes. As type-2 diabetes incidence is estimated to be 10% of the world population by 2030, new treatments are required. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a class of cellular molecules that act in concert with the rest of the cell machinery. The lncRNAs that regulate fat breakdown are not known. I have developed state-of-the-art methods to isolate a lncRNA from a fat cell and discover how it functions mechanistically. Using patient fat tissue data coupled with human stem cell models, I will identify fat breakdown regulating lncRNAs. As many lncRNAs are unique to one type of cell, they offer a precise way to target the fat cell and alter metabolic health.

Pablo Cardenas

Most of our food comes from only a dozen of plants, making our food system highly vulnerable to plant pests, diseases and climate change. In nature, there are thousands of plants with potential to be part of a future diverse and resilient agriculture, but many of them contain unpleasant compounds. In Back to the Future, I will bring from the past and develop the wild plant Chenopodium album as a new crop. Its seeds have high protein content and were eaten in Denmark during prehistorical times, but contain bitter and anti-nutritional chemical compounds called saponins. I have established a unique collection of C. album from all over Denmark and characterized their protein and saponin contents. In Back to the Future, I will combine the latest molecular, agricultural and food sciences and technologies to understand the molecular basis of saponin biosynthesis, its bitterness and plant domestication to develop C. album into a valuable plant for future food security.

Quentin Geissmann

Agriculture is the most impactful human activity, inevitably leading to environmental issues. One such crisis is the unprecedented rate at which we deplete our arable lands by growing crops without restoring soils. The trends of soil loss threaten our food security and, to preserve lands, we must transition to a more “circular” agriculture, which returns nutrients to the field. In nature, specialised decomposers implement circularity by recycling organic matter. Among them, earthworms, one of the most abundant animal groups, are pivotal. However, since they hide below ground, scientists only know them very little. This project will finally open the black box by developing modern and original tools, based on sensors and artificial intelligence, that uncover the behaviour and ecology of earthworms. Understanding these cryptic creatures in depth will allow us to best utilise their agricultural services while protecting these key players to preserve and restore our soils.

Sesilja Aranko

Protein-based materials carry the potential to combine excellent mechanical properties with inherent biodegradability and valuable functionalities, such as self-healing. Despite substantial progress in the design of artificial protein-based materials, they are yet to reach their full potential.

One of the current limitations is related to so called post-translational modifications, which are covalent modifications of proteins occurring after their biosynthesis. There is accumulating evidence that the post-translational modifications of proteins are essential for the mechanical properties and functionalities of the resulting materials. Yet, the mechanisms behind how these modifications affect the properties of biomaterials are not fully understood, mainly due to technical limitations.

In the Pro2Fun project, I aim to develop methods to produce post-translationally modified structural proteins, including silks and collagens, in bacteria that cannot make the desired modifications naturally. Production in bacteria enables obtaining the proteins in an economical, ethical, and sustainable manner. Furthermore, I will use the modified proteins to engineer novel functional biomaterials, which have the potential to substitute current oil- and animal-based alternatives.

Magdalena Malm

Genetic diseases are caused by errors in our genetic material that encodes critical functions in our bodies. To correct such errors has long been a goal for researchers and since 2017, there have been major advancements in the development of so-called gene therapies based on adeno-associated viruses (AAVs). This virus is not causing diseases in humans and can be altered to deliver a correct gene into patients. Such therapies can treat diseases like genetic blindness and hemophilia B. However, a major limitation with these drugs is that they are very expensive to produce, resulting in doses costing up to 3.5 million USD. This is partly due to inefficient production by so called cell factories and low quality of the produced AAVs. This project aims to provide insight into the host environment of the cell factories to pinpoint what components can be altered to improve them. Ultimately, the collected knowledge will be used to generate more sustainable and efficient AAV cell factories.

Adam Hulman

Adam Hulman says: “Artificial intelligence enables computer programs to execute human-like tasks like image and speech recognition, text translation, and more. These applications are based on deep learning, a method that can recognize patterns in large datasets (e.g. millions of images from the internet) and then make predictions for new cases. In this project, deep learning methods will be developed and applied in a clinical setting. Persons with type 1 diabetes visit their physicians regularly for check-ups and screening for complications. Some of them also monitor their health using wearable devices even between visits. Combining these data creates a unique opportunity for the development of clinical prediction models that can assist clinicians to tailor prevention and treatment. However, complex data of different types (tabular, images, time series) collected repeatedly over time call for the development and application of novel deep learning methods”.

Adam Hulman came to Denmark for a Postdoc position at Aarhus University, Department of Public Health in 2015. In 2018 he joined Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus, Aarhus University Hospital, where he has been a Senior Data Scientist since 2020.

Tibor V. Varga

Tibor V. Varga says: “In the EU, health inequalities account for 20% of total healthcare costs and related welfare losses amount to nearly 1 trillion EUR per year. The European Commission considers health inequalities to be one of the greatest challenges facing European healthcare systems. Navigating this challenge requires improved data and smarter methods and tools for evaluating inequalities in health as well as practical ways for narrowing healthcare gaps. The vision of the Algorithmic Fairness in Diabetes Prediction (ALFADIAB) research program is a society where access to healthcare and quality of care do not depend on ethnicity, race, sex, or wealth. Even in Denmark, with its universal healthcare system, this is not yet a reality, and minorities with diabetes, and those who are the poorest, are affected more than others. As an example, immigrants, their descendants, and those who are the poorest have higher rates of developing type 2 diabetes, experience more severe complications (diseases of the heart, eye, and kidney), and benefit less from the Danish healthcare system. In this research program, I will investigate whether established risk prediction models, that are used to forecast which individuals are at high risk of diabetes, are underperforming for minorities and those with lower socioeconomic status. By utilizing Danish registry-based data on millions of people I will assess inequalities in diabetes management and care, and deploy artificial intelligence techniques to develop improved predictive models that are equitable and perform equally well between subgroups”.

Tibor V. Varga has been an Assistant Professor at Section of Epidemiology at University of Copenhagen, Department of Public Health since 2020.

Martin Blomberg Jensen

Martin Blomberg Jensen says: “This project aims at uncovering the role RANKL – a protein known to be important for bone health – for male fertility. I have identified this protein in the testis and inhibition of the protein increases the production of sperm. This finding may be of clinical relevance as there exist a RANKL inhibitor used to treat osteoporosis in women and maybe we can repurpose this treatment as a novel treatment option for some infertile men. This will be of great interest because there exists no treatment for male infertility today. Instead, the women are treated with invasive and expensive assisted reproductive techniques even when the women are healthy. By studying the effects of RANKL inhibition in mouse models, human testis models, and by injecting the drug into infertile men our approach will show whether this may serve as a novel treatment option for some cases of male infertility.”

Martin Blomberg Jensen has established his independent research group at Department of Growth and Reproduction, Rigshospitalet, and is currently doing his specialist training in endocrinology. He says: “This grant will be fundamental to secure continuity in my group in the year to come and for achieving my overall aim of creating an expert center for bone and mineral research/disease in east Denmark”.