14 researchers from Health receive grants from Independent Research Fund Denmark

Independent Research Fund Denmark (IRFD) has just awarded grants totalling DKK 750 million to 222 researchers across regions and across all scientific research areas. At Health, these researchers have received funding to improve their research based on their own ideas:

• Professor Christian Kanstrup Holm from the Department of Biomedicine has received DKK 2,865,168 to study a previously unknown section of the immune system that can fight viral infections, such as influenza and Covid, which in some people do not cause symptoms.
   
• Associate Professor Olav Michael Andersen from the Department of Biomedicine has received DKK 2,880,000 for a project on how mutations in the SORL1 gene can cause Alzheimer's dementia, for example by inhibiting the transport of specific proteins to the surface of nerve cells.
   
• Associate Professor Helle Hasager Damkier from the Department of Biomedicine has received DKK 2,057,813 to study how bicarbonate is transported from the blood to the cerebrospinal fluid after a brain haemorrhage.
   
• Clinical Professor and Chair Henrik Toft Sørensen from the Department of Clinical Medicine – Department of Clinical Epidemiology has received DKK 2,788,848 to shed light on the correlation between blood clots (thrombosis) in the legs and lungs and mental disorders.
   
• Professor Robert A. Fenton from the Department of Biomedicine has received DKK 2,879,377 for a project to increase our understanding of the significance of potassium at molecular level for high blood pressure.
   
• Professor Hans Eiskjær from the Department of Clinical Medicine has received DKK 2,878,848 for a project on heart transplants from DCD (donation after circulatory death) donors, the goal of which is to optimise pre-treatment, monitoring and storage of the donor heart from transport up to transplant.
   
• Professor Rikke Nørregaard from the Department of Clinical Medicine has received DKK 2,852,352 to study whether stimulation or blockage of specific PGE2 receptors inhibits fibrosis in the kidneys.
   
• Professor Ole Schmeltz Søgaard from the Department of Clinical Medicine has received DKK 2,877,985 to identify the characteristics that enable our T-cells to fight and control HIV infection.
   
• Assistant Professor Antoine de Morree from the Department of Biomedicine has received DKK 1,473,336 for a project in which he will study how and when the muscle stem cells become overwhelmed by the muscular dystrophy disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).
   
• Professor Peter Nejsum from the Department of Clinical Medicine will receive DKK 2,827,728 to study how the innate immune system reacts when it encounters parasitic worms, and how long the immune cells can 'remember' the worm and thereby the derived effects.
   
• Professor Peter Nejsum from the Department of Clinical Medicine has also received DKK 6,187,824 to study whether extracellular vesicles can be used as a ‘natural’ delivery system of medicines for specific cells and organs in the body.
   
• Associate Professor Lasse Sommer Kristensen from the Department of Biomedicine has received DKK 2,880,000 to shed light on some completely new basic molecular mechanisms in bowel cancer through so-called circular RNA molecules.
   
• Professor Thomas Vorup-Jensen from the Department of Biomedicine has received DKK 2,853,219 to study the possibilities of identifying significant molecular mechanisms in disease-related protein fibrillation in patients with phenylketonuria (PKU).
   
• Clinical professor and chair Holger Jon Møller from the Department of Clinical Medicine has received  DKK 2,059,200 to measure tumor-supporting proteins in the blood of bladder cancer patients to assess disease severity and determine appropriate treatment.

• Professor Sune Jespersen from the Department of Clinical Medicine - CFIN has received DKK 6,179,836 to develop a theory and method for mapping the degradation of myelin and accumulation of iron in neurodegenerative diseases using MRI.

Several of the researchers are also affiliated with Aarhus University Hospital.

The article has been edited on June 6, 2023: two additional researchers have been added to the list.

This coverage is based on press material from the Independent Research Fund Denmark.