New professor researches the use and effects of drugs
Henrik Støvring is a new professor of statistics and pharmacometrics at the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University. In his professorship, which is financed by Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus, he investigates the usage and effects of drugs in various patient groups.
Why are more and more people getting diabetes? Does screening for breast cancer work? Are patients getting enough benefit from their medicine? And how can we find out whether a treatment actually works when there are often many alternative explanations? These are just some of the questions that Henrik Støvring's research aims to answer.
The Danish health registers include data on purchases of medicines from pharmacies, hospital admissions, causes of death, etc., and they make it possible for the newly appointed professor and his research colleagues to find these answers. But it requires advanced epidemiological studies and methods of statistical analysis. Henrik Støvring has helped develop these methods and apply them in a number of different fields of medical research, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, HIV and Covid-19.
"Statistics is often called 'the queen of sciences' because it is used by so many other sciences to collect, analyse and interpret data. My research therefore provides new tools for studies of health and diseases in the population. But it will also benefit the population and various patient groups, because it will result in better treatments and help us avoid those that don't work," says Henrik Støvring.
He goes on to say that the new professorship will be a platform for building a research group with focus on better utilisation of the Danish health registers, e.g. by developing better measurements for treatment quality and medicine use. The professorship also gives Henrik Støvring an opportunity to supervise PhD students and others at AU: a task he is very much looking forward to.
The professorship is funded by Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus.
Contact
Professor, DMSc Henrik Støvring
Aarhus University, Department of Biomedicine and
Aarhus University Hospital, Department of Clinical Pharmacology
Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus
Mobile: (+45) 22 33 55 86
Mail: stovring@biomed.au.dk