Explore our grantees and awardees

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: France

Immunological memory allows the immune system to respond more effectively to specific pathogens upon a second encounter. Another type of memory exists in some immune cells, ‘inflammatory memory’, allowing an enhanced response to a subsequent exposure to a pathogen that is different from the initial one. It remains unknown whether this type of memory also develops following injury-related inflammation, in the absence of a pathogen. In this project, we will explore this question in the skin, using a model of skin wound. We will focus in particular on the potential impact of this phenomenon on wound healing and on opportunistic infections with the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. This research project will allow a better understanding of the impact of this ‘inflammatory memory’ on skin diseases, including relapsing-remitting disorders. In the longer term, results from this project should also create novel opportunities for the treatment of chronic wounds and immune-mediated skin damage.

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: 2026

Geography: France

Skin color and protection from sunlight rely on the proper transfer of melanin from melanocytes to epidermal keratinocytes. In inflammatory skin conditions, this process is disrupted, causing abnormal pigment accumulation in dermal immune macrophage cells and leading to long-lasting dark spots known as post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (PIH). The mechanism driving these alterations is poorly understood, which limits therapeutic options. Our work reveals that melanin particles are coated with biological messengers named extracellular vesicles (EVs). This project will investigate whether melanin-associated EVs actively control the fate of released pigments and pigmented cells under normal and inflammatory conditions. By combining molecular analyses with human skin models, MELCOM aims to clarify how inflammation disrupts pigment and immune-epithelial cell behavior. The result will provide new insights into inflammatory pigmentary disorders and identify potential therapeutic targets.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: USA

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic condition characterized by a weakened skin barrier, inflammation, and itch. Existing treatments mainly focus on relieving inflammation without directly addressing the skin barrier’s impairment. Our goal is to develop a topical treatment for AD that strengthens the skin barrier while reducing inflammation, an approach not previously explored. We recently discovered that a protein named RET is hyperactivated in AD, and inhibiting RET topically has shown promising results in enhancing the skin barrier and reducing inflammation. We hypothesize that topical RET inhibitors could effectively prevent and/or treat AD. Our proposal seeks to investigate how RET modulates skin barrier function and demonstrate the therapeutic effectiveness of topical RET inhibition using an established animal model that mimics human AD. This research is essential to fully explore RET as a therapeutic target in AD and advance the development of RET inhibitors for this condition.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: Australia

Stevens-Johnson syndrome/toxic epidermal necrolysis (SJS/TEN) is a life-threatening skin reaction to certain drugs, driven by immune cells called CD8+ T cells. Our research aims to uncover why only some people are at risk by studying how specific immune receptors (TCRs) and genetic markers (HLA) interact with drugs to activate CD8+ T-cells in the skin. We have found that certain HLA markers linked to SJS/TEN share structural features and that drug-reactive TCRs come from pre-existing immune cells in the skin from past viral infections. This suggests drug reactions may involve crosstalk between drug and viral signals. We will now model these interactions in (i) patients to predict dangerous drug-HLA combinations for safer drug treatment and (ii) naïve immune cells from healthy donors to model early immune reactions and predict ‘high-risk’ drugs for safer drug development. This work could lead to new clinical and preclinical strategies to prevent SJS/TEN and reduce its global impact.

Grant category: Research Grants

Year: 2026

Geography: USA

Behçet’s disease is a chronic inflammatory condition that can affects the skin, mucous membranes, and multiple organs, and can be difficult to diagnose and treat. The immune mechanisms driving this disease are not well understood. Our research shows that a specific group of immune cells, called monocytes, are abnormally activated in Behçet’s disease, largely due to the action of interferon-gamma. This activation changes with treatment and differs across disease types, such as eye or blood vessel involvement. In this study, we will identify the signals that cause and sustain this abnormal immune response, develop blood-based markers to track disease activity and remission, and test whether blocking key inflammatory pathways can restore normal immune cell function. This work aims to improve disease monitoring and support the development of more targeted and effective treatments for patients with Behçet’s disease.

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.