Research Grants

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

Necrotising Soft Tissue Infections, (flesh eating disease), are rapidly progressing, life threatening infections mostly caused by Group A Streptococcus. Current treatments are surgery and antibiotics, but are often insufficient leading to high rates of amputation and death.

This project develops phage therapy as a targeted alternative. Building on our previous work where we identified the first effective phages against GAS, we will expand and test phages and use computational models to design optimal phage cocktails that maximise bacterial coverage while reducing resistance risk.

To enable effective treatment in infected tissue, we will develop a hydrogel based delivery system to stabilise and deliver phages locally. The most promising therapies will be tested in advanced human skin models that mimic NSTI.

The aim is to create a new, targeted therapeutic approach, that complements existing treatment, improves infection control, and reduces the need for surgery and amputation.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

Darier’s disease is a rare skin disorder causing painful skin lesions, recurrent infections, and profound psychosocial burden, including depression. No treatment addresses the underlying cause – patients manage symptoms with limited, poorly tolerated therapies.

The disease results from a fault in one copy of the ATP2A2 gene, leaving skin cells with insufficient levels of SERCA2, a protein critical for calcium signaling. The other copy remains intact.

Our approach exploits this: rather than replacing the faulty gene, we use a small engineered RNA molecule to stabilize the healthy copy’s molecular instructions, boosting SERCA2 production to levels sufficient to correct the disease. The therapy is reversible, does not alter the genome, and is designed for topical delivery to affected skin.

The same platform can in principle be redirected to other diseases caused by the same type of genetic fault – opening the door to treatments for a broad range of currently incurable conditions.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is the most common chronic inflammatory skin condition worldwide. Its main symptom is chronic pruritus, an intense itch that severely disrupts patients’ sleep, mental health, and social well-being.

This urge to scratch is driven by a signalling molecule called Interleukin-31 (IL-31). To trigger the sensation of itch, IL-31 binds to a receptor on the cell surface transferring a signal to the inside that sets off a cascade of reactions. While this interaction is the key to unlocking the itch, the molecular details of the initiation mechanism remain a mystery.

Using Cryo-Electron Microscopy (cryo-EM), a Nobel Prize-winning imaging technique, we can “”take a snapshot”” of IL-31 binding to its full-length receptor. This knowledge can help to design better and more specific treatments, especially for patients who do not respond to the current ones, to shut down the itch where it starts.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

Atopic dermatitis is one of the most common childhood diseases with no effective prevention, which is urgently needed to reduce the number of children growing up with this disease. My ambition is to investigate whether the air pollution that children are exposed to, the environment they grow up in and the number of infections they contract in the first years of life are related to later development of childhood eczema. I will try to understand the mechanisms behind such relations and this is done by analyzing the pregnant mother and newborn child’s blood profiles, which may reveal which children are more prone to develop eczema based on how the environment shapes their blood profile. By looking for specific blood markers, we may be able to say exactly who is prone to develop eczema and our hope is to contribute the development of a strategy where simple blood tests can reveal how and which children that will develop eczema in the future.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a frequent childhood skin disease with a substantial impact on patients’ daily lives. Its development is influenced by many factors, including genetics and the environment. Children in areas with hard water develop AD more often, but it is unclear why, whether other water compounds than the ones comprising hardness play a role, and also whether softening water can reduce risk. These will be the key elements to study in the current proposed project, which will evaluate how early-life drinking water composition affects the risk and severity of AD. This can be achieved by combining detailed water data with health information in two well-characterized mother-child cohorts and also in the entire Danish population. The findings may guide prevention strategies, inform caregivers, and provide evidence to support public health policies in Denmark regarding the health benefits of central water softening.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

Pyoderma gangrenosum is a rare but severe inflammatory skin disease that causes painful, non-healing wounds. In many patients, the skin disease is linked to inflammation in other organs, especially the gut, but it is not known how inflammation starting in the skin can spread through the body. This project uses a specially developed animal model that closely mimics the human disease, showing both skin ulcers and gut inflammation. Using state of the art biomolecular techniques we will study how immune cells and inflammatory signals move between skin and intestine, and we aim to understand how a local skin disease can become systemic. The results may help improve diagnosis and guide more targeted treatments for patients. The project is carried out within the framework of the DREAM Center, which brings together experts across medical disciplines to study complex inflammatory diseases affecting multiple organs.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2025

Geography: Denmark

Patients with atopic dermatitis (AD) are much more likely to develop other environmental (pollen, dust mites) or food allergies, but we do not understand why. Our immune system usually ignores most proteins in contact with the skin, yet some people, have a strong reaction. With this project we aim to determine whether human and microbe enzymes on AD-affected skin can turn harmless proteins into allergens by cutting them or chemically modifying them. We will use lab-grown human skin models and cutting-edge tools to see how bacteria and damaged skin cells alter proteins like those from pollen, dust mites, of peanut and whether these changes make them more likely to trigger allergic reactions. We will also study how these modified proteins are recognised by the immune system. The results could lead to better ways to prevent allergies in people with AD, such as treatments that block harmful enzymes, protect the skin barrier, or train the immune system to tolerate allergens.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2025

Geography: Denmark

Chronic urticaria, also known as chronic hives, is a common skin condition causing itchy rashes and swelling, considerably impacting the quality of life. Although common, the exact cause remains unknown. We will study the proteins involved in chronic urticaria to better understand the underlying disease mechanisms and hopefully find new treatment options. We will use a specialized technique called mass spectrometry to measure the proteins in skin samples from patients with hives and healthy controls. With this approach we can determine which proteins are altered in affected skin, offering new insights into the underlying causes of the condition. Additionally, we will study how immune cells and nerve signals affect the disease by conducting laboratory experiments. By understanding the biology of chronic urticaria better, we hope to contribute to the development of more effective and targeted treatments that could help people suffering from this challenging condition.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2025

Geography: Denmark

Pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa are commonly associated with non-healing and aggravated wounds, since they can colonize and invade host tissues, and many times cause life threatening conditions such as sepsis. Resistance to the available antibiotic therapies has been reported for both bacteria, and serious S. aureus skin infections are noted in both humans and animals. This project will investigate the ability of proteasome-derived defence peptides (PDDPs) – which can be naturally produced by our body – to protect against infection whilst promoting wound healing. It will also analyse the mechanisms by which PDDPs exert their effects. For this, different techniques (in vitro, ex vivo and molecular biology) will be used. For the ex vivo experiments, a wound dressing containing PDDPs will be developed with specific characteristics to allow PDDPs to target the pathogens whilst promoting wound healing.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2025

Geography: Denmark

Chronic skin wounds and burns are major healthcare challenges, often healing slowly and leading to infections, pain, and high medical costs. Sine Hadrup’s project focuses on an enzyme that may worsen inflammation and delay healing of the injured skin. Sine Hardrup and her team will use artificial intelligence-driven protein design to create a small protein inhibitor (miBd) that blocks the enzyme, preventing its harmful effects. First, they will test whether miBds can bind and stop enzyme activity. Then, they will evaluate their impact on wound healing using human cell culture. Finally, they will test them in a pig skin model, as pig skin closely resembles human skin. Burns are introduced on the pig skin and treated topically with or without the miBds. If successful, this research could lead to new treatment options for wound healing and inflammatory skin diseases like psoriasis, offering better patient outcomes and faster recovery times.