Explore our grantees and awardees

Grant category: Standalone grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

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: Standalone grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

Astra is Denmark’s national STEM education center. The grant supports continuation and new developments for three core activities:

• Unge Forskere (“Young Scientists”): An annual science talent competition in which students of all age groups can pursue a project, often as an integrated part of their STEM classes.
• Science Talenter (“Science Talents”): Camps, classes, and conferences within STEM topics, anchored at Astra’s facilities in Sorø and aimed at talented pupils from Danish schools.
• Big Bang: An annual conference for STEM education professionals to gain new ideas and meet inspiring colleagues.

Grant category: Standalone grants

Year: 2025

Geography: Denmark

This grant will support BIOSKIN 2.0, enabling the continuation of BIOSKIN (The Copenhagen Translational Skin Immunology Biobank and Research Program) at the Department of Dermatology and Allergy, Herlev and Gentofte Hospital. The program focuses on translational research by expanding analysis of longitudinal patient data and patient samples, integrating advanced skin immunology and omics technologies and including the establishment of a comprehensive data biobank. The overall aim is to identify new prognostic biomarkers and targets for improved treatment of some of the most common inflammatory skin diseases.

Grant category: Standalone grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

This grant will enable the LEO Foundation Skin Immunology Research Center to initiate long-term relations with universities and research institutions in Tanzania and South Africa through five complementary collaborative research projects:

• Allergic Contact Dermatitis in Tanzania
• Hand Dermatitis and Quality of Life in South Africa
• Immune Profiling and Allergen Sensitivity in Tanzanian Populations
• Clinical and Immunological Insights into Pityriasis Versicolor
• Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma (CTCL) and Skin Microbiome in Tanzania

The grant and the projects will further support the center’s mission to be an international center of excellence for barrier tissue immunology research.

Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

A box of eight illustrated children’s books on the life and research of well-known Danish scientists is distributed to Danish kindergartens. The goal is to spark early scientific curiosity among the 4-6-year-olds and provide pedagogues with age-appropriate tools that are aligned with the STEM curriculum for kindergartens. The researchers are selected to balance concrete and abstract science, historic and modern-day scientists, and diversity in gender and ethnicity. The books are supplemented with educational material introducing preschoolers to hands-on experiments and playful activities related to the presented research fields. More than 3000 Danish kindergartens have already committed to receiving a box, and the municipality of Roskilde serves as a development and test partner.

Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Denmark

The university museum Medicinsk Museion will create a new major exhibition exploring precision health through science, culture, and history, including a focus on skin as a visible and personal organ and barrier. The goal is to enhance public understanding of personalized medicine and its ethical, social, and scientific perspectives. Target groups include the general public, students, and health professionals with an expected 500,000 visitors over the exhibition lifetime of ten years.