Explore our grantees and awardees

Grant category: Standalone grants

Year: 2022

Geography: Denmark

SIC Springtime School is hosted annually by the LEO Foundation Skim Immunology Research Center (SIC) and has shown to be a great success over the two previous years. The international school is held at Hornbækhus on the North Coast of Zealand and forms part of SIC’s educational and career development activities – in 2022 representing 86 speakers, international students, and postdoc participants.  

The SIC Springtime School offers participants the opportunity to interact with leading scientists, providing for rich and positive learning experiences.  

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Grant category: Standalone grants

Year: 2022

Geography: Denmark

The SIC PhD Program aims to nurture the development of upcoming skin immunologists and to further tap into the collaborative possibilities of the research groups within the by the LEO Foundation Skim Immunology Research Center (SIC). 

The program features a 1+3-year structure for five PhD studies at the center. In their first year, students are onboarded into the program as Research Assistants, before eventually enrolling as full-time PhD students in their year two. 

The program sets to strengthen not only the collaborative nature of the center, but also allows for potentially high-gain projects to be set into motion. 

Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants

Year: 2022

Geography: Denmark

Astra has existed as an organization since 2015-2017 and was born out of a merger between Danish Science Factory, ‘Science Talenter’ and the publicly funded NTS-center (Det Nationale Center for Undervisning i Natur, Teknik og Sundhed). Astra defines its mission as to bring together relevant actors to progress and expand upon the quality and framing of the education of the natural sciences. 

The LEO Foundation has previously supported numerous of Astra’s initiatives and activities, and with this grant, funding is dispersed between 3 of Astra’s largest programs: ‘Unge Forskere‘ (Young Scientists) an annual research-idea and talent competition for children and youths in elementary- and high -school with a passion for science and technology, ‘Big Bang‘ an annual science conference for professionals within teaching and communication of STEM and science topics, and ‘Science Talenter’ (Science Talents) which organizes science camps for the oldest pupils from elementary school as well as A-level students with a special interest in and talent for STEM-topics. 

Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants

Year: 2022

Geography: Denmark

Lex.dk is an association formed by the Danish Universities, Gyldendal A/S, G.E.C. Gad’s Foundation and the Danish Society for Language and Literature, which was originally established around the online version of ‘Den Store Danske’, Gyldendal’s well-renowned encyclopedia. The encyclopedia focuses on nature, culture, science, and society with a national point of departure and a global outlook.  

Lex.dk has become the go-to resource for dissemination of validated research information from many areas of expertise and is written by researchers and experts. The encyclopedia serves as an important source to the broader public, but rather importantly, also to pupils in elementary school and A-level students when compiling information for assignments and reports.  

Lex.dk is unique in that there is no other encyclopedia source in Danish that provides a broad perspective on health and health sciences through focused articles. This grant supports updating and significantly expanding content on health and health research through collaboration with the Norwegian counterpart. This means that newly revised and well-researched information on will become available to the general Danish public online. 

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Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2022

Geography: Denmark

Claus Johansen’s project investigates the role of the protein ERAP2 in the pathogenesis of psoriasis.

Psoriasis is considered an autoimmune disease – i.e., a disease in which the T-cells of the immune system attack and destroy the body’s own cells by error. During an exposure to external factors (peptides, bacteria etc) a system of specialized cells engulfs, digests, and presents peptide fragments (antigens) of these external factors on their surface to the body’s immune cells – usually cytotoxic CD8+ T-cells – which, once activated, then surveil, identify, and destroy foreign elements containing that specific peptide or peptides with very similar overall structure. The peptides are presented by a specific receptor, called the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) receptor and it is well-known that a particular subtype of this receptor, the HLA-C receptor is dominant in psoriatic patients – still, concrete disease-specific self-antigens have not yet been identified. Recent results have indicated that a protein, ERAP2, which facilitates the association of antigen peptides to HLA receptors may have a role to play in the erroneous recognition of self-antigens in autoimmune diseases like psoriasis. Claus and his team aim to clarify the role of this protein in the current proposal.

If successful, their project may help shed further light on the autoimmune characteristics of psoriasis – and eventually help guide new treatment approaches.

Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2022

Geography: Denmark

This project, led by Søren Degn, aims to investigate the role of a newly discovered immune cell, the T follicular regulatory cell (Tfr), in controlling systemic autoimmunity.

Søren Degn and his team have discovered that Tfrs are able to maintain tolerance in the skin even in the face of systemic inflammation, which in that case appear to be reversible, but also that if Tfr control in the skin fails, the systemic inflammation becomes irreversible and chronic.

Using a mouse model where Tfrs are selectively deleted, Søren and his team will investigate immune responses and identify which specific self-antigens are targeted when the tolerance maintained by the Tfrs is lost.

Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2022

Geography: Denmark

The project by Tim Tolker-Nielsen aims to identify novel chemical compounds as potential drug leads for treating bacterial involvement in atopic dermatitis. The present project builds on findings from another LEO Foundation grant, which discovered a central factor, Sbi, responsible for the virulence (the ability to cause disease) of the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus in atopic dermatitis flares. As this factor appears to be unique to that bacterium it can be targeted with minimal impact expected on beneficial commensal (i.e. non-pathogenic) bacteria. Tim and his team will utilize existing libraries of chemical compounds to screen for lead candidates that can prevent the production of Sbi and which may be developed into a future treatment for atopic dermatitis flares.

Grant category: Standalone grants

Year: 2021

Geography: Denmark

Add-on Grant for the Leo Foundation Skin Immunology Research Center. Herlev and Gentofte Hospital together with LEO Foundation Skin Immunology Research Center at the University of Copenhagen establish a new research program and biobank with skin tissue and blood samples from 3,000 patients with illnesses such as psoriasis and eczema. The biobank is the first of its kind and will help shed light on some of the most common skin diseases. The goal is to collect data from 3,000 patients with skin diseases and in the long term also making data and knowledge available for researchers around the world.

The research program is established by the LEO Foundation Skin Immunology Research Center at the University of Copenhagen and the Department of Dermatology and Allergy at Herlev and Gentofte Hospital.

The program is supported with DKK 40 million from the LEO Foundation and co-financed with DKK 20 million from Herlev and Gentofte Hospital and LEO Foundation Skin Immunology Research Center.

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Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants

Year: 2021

Geography: Denmark

Unge Forskere is the largest talent competition in Denmark within STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Target group is students in primary school and high school.

Unge Forskere contributes to both talent development through participation in the competition and strengthens the work with innovation, idea development and the natural science method in daily teaching. Furthermore, it strengthens the natural science identity and the general science education among children and young people in Denmark.

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Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants

Year: 2021

Geography: Denmark

Bloom is an innovative festival about science and nature, which enlighten us on the universe, the World, and ourselves.

It takes place in the lush Søndermarken in the heart of Copenhagen, Denmark, where some of the World’s greatest scientists, poets and philosophers have found inspiration through history.

In recent years, Bloom has extended to become a year-round platform for science communication, which includes, e.g., the digital magazine Bloom Explore with videos, podcasts and essays, Summer Bloom at Geopark Odsherred, Bloom School targeted at 7^th – 9^th grade students, and a coming book series from Gyldendal.

By uniting the best from the worlds of festivals and science, Bloom aims to take on Life’s greatest questions through debates, talks, laboratories, conversations, and nature walks.

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