Dear all

Here follows the latest news.

Meeting with the Dean last Friday 1^st February
The meeting went well. There was news about construction (eg. the planned underground parking facility will probably not come off, the Department will eventually have only 1 animal facility in the new building – with the possibility of short-term animal testing/studies in the other biomedical buildings). A pamphlet, developed in collaboration with HE Communications, with a brief description of the Department’s strategy was distributed at the meeting. The pamphlet can be obtained from Morten Pless.

Department meetings the next half year
Department meetings are planned for 1st March and 2nd May at 08.30 a.m. Both meetings will be held in Lille Anatomisk auditorium (building 1231, room 424). More information will follow.

Talks with senior staff
We have started to organize meetings with the 65-year-old or older senior employees in 2013. The meetings are a good opportunity for confidential talks on status and future plans.

Psychological workplace assessment
The results will be published in late February and communicated to all employees. The Department is setting up a task force, chaired by the undersigned, to help with the follow-up work.

Elections to the Department Forum
Elections to the Department Forum are held on 19 and 20 February. Voting takes place at the Secretariat in the Victor Albeck building. The polling station will be open both days from 9:00 a.m. to 03:00 p.m. It will also be possible to vote by post. Voting procedures will be issued and forwarded separately by Morten Pless. A presentation of the candidates for the Department Forum and additional information about the elections can be found at the staff portal.

AURUS settlements
Anne Flensburg remains secretarial expert in AURUS settlements. She has moved from her previous location in Biomedicine South to the Bartholin Building, room 116 (the passage leading to the animal facility). Her telephone number is 2326 6023.

Joint procurement
The Head of Administration Steen Jakobsen Harrit has started a project aimed at exploring the possibilities of coordinating departmental purchases to a higher extent than presently. As a first step, Steen will contact the persons who are in charge today. Steen will coordinate the coming work with buildings manager Viggo Nielsen and with the support from AU Procurement. The goal is to reduce the administrative burden on the professional staff and make purchasing more efficient - without introducing new complicated procedures and reducing the quality of products.

Cooperation Committee
The local Cooperation Committee (LSU) has scheduled two meetings in the spring. The agenda for the first meeting in week 6 will be forwarded to the Committee members and their substitutes. The agenda is also available at the staff website. The agenda includes consulting of AU's new MUS (Employee Performance Concept) concept.

New Neuro Center
An opening ceremony for a future neuro initiative is planned for 5th March in the AULA. More information will follow.

Pure registration
A number of 2012 publications still need to be registered. It is important that all published articles are recorded as each return between Dkr 20,000-60,000.

Novo scholarships
Reminder about another call for Novo Super scholarships (Laureates). KU (Copenhagen University) ran with the first 2, so now it's "our turn". Each scholarship grants 40 million Dkr for a 7-year period, with an option for a 7-year extension. Next application deadline is 18 April 2013.

New organization of animal facilities
In the future our biomedical animal facilities will be organized in such a way that I, as Head of Department has overall responsibility. Veterinarian Frederick Dagnæs-Hansen has professional responsibility and Birgitte Lüttge has overall operational and staff responsibilities. Ulla Dansberg is manager of the Bartholin animal facility. Ulla, Frederik and Birgitte will implement uniform guidelines, emergency plans, and ensure that uniform schemes are made for project and breeding plans. The Faculty has formed a new Faculty Animal Facility Committee, chaired by Jens Christian Hedemann Sorensen (also chairman of the Academic Council) with representation from the Departments of Clinical Medicine and Biomedicine, with department heads, managers, veterinarians and users. Our Department is represented by Frederick Dagnæs-Hansen, Birgitte Lüttge, Jens Leipziger, Anders Nykjær and the undersigned.

New high impact articles
As you may have seen, Lars Bolund is co-author of a publication about the pig genome published in Nature. More information about the publication.

Simon Glerup, Ditte Olsen, Jens Nyengaard, Christian Vægter, Camilla Gustafsen, Erik Ilsø Christensen, Mads Kjølby, Peder Madsen, Anders Nykjær and Claus M. Petersen have published an article on the SorLA receptor in Cell Reports.

Hang Nielsen, Vivien Schack and Bente Vilsen are co-authors of an article about adenomas in the adrenal gland may have mutations in the Na, K-ATPase genes, published in Nature Genetics.

Congratulations to all the authors.

Novel grants to young talented, biomedical researchers
Six young researchers from Aarhus University have received the Independent Research Council’s Sapere Aude grants from the Independent Research Council. Quite remarkably, three of the six grants went to talented young researchers from our Department: Christian Holm, Emma Bisgaard Olesen and Kathrin Weyer. Congratulations.

Week 7
I’ll be away on holiday next week (week 7). I’m going to the Faroe Islands to make a presentation on genome ethics, being invited by the Faroese Ministry of Health, The Færøske Geninstitut (the Feroese Gene Department) and the Faroese Research Ethics Committee. Most of our management team will also be on holiday in week 7, either the entire week or a few days, except for Viggo Nielsen who’ll take a half-day off Wednesday afternoon. I’ll be checking my mail and telephone to the extent possible.

See you
Thomas

Translation: Zitta Nygaard