Explore our grantees and awardees

Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants

Year: 2024

Geography: Denmark

Science City Lyngby will produce 18 videos of female STEM role models to create awareness and interest among girls in STEM activities and education. The videos consist of three series, one focusing on personal stories of women working in STEM jobs, and another on interviews with well-known female science profiles of influence. The final series features girls attending Science Club, an after-school program offered by Science City Lyngby. The Science Club girls will also be actively involved together with a professional journalist in the planning and execution of the video series, creating identification and ensuring relevance for the main target group. The videos will be disseminated through 10 roadshows in other Danish municipalities, presentations at lower secondary schools, and a social media campaign also targeting parents and teachers.

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Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants

Year: 2024

Geography: Denmark

Folkeuniversitetet in Aarhus will establish a free annual science festival, PARK, for the public to take place at Aarhus University Park. Leading scientists will give talks about the latest research results, with the aim of promoting curiosity and contributing actively to democracy. The program will also feature events within music, literature, and art.

Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants

Year: 2024

Geography: Denmark

The project Through the researchers’ eyes aims to improve natural science education in the lower secondary school by applying a teaching method known from the arts, Visual Thinking Strategies, which focuses on strengthening students’ skills within observation, description, and discussion – key elements also of the natural science disciplines – to stimulate students’ curiosity and active participation. The project is a collaboration between both education experts and university researchers from Copenhagen University, experts from VTSdanmark and chosen teachers.

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Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2024

Geography: Denmark

Jonathan Brewer’s project, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Mike Barnkob, aims to advance skin biology by developing a much-needed human skin model with immune components, enabling detailed study of skin responses to stress and disease. By creating both normal and diseased skin models, with a focus on Cutaneous Lupus Erythematosus (CLE), Jonathan Brewer and his team will investigate the immune processes underlying CLE skin manifestations and provide a platform for developing targeted treatments. These models will also allow Jonathan and the team to study how skin and immune cells respond to UV radiation and mechanical forces, both of which play a significant role in CLE, where such stimuli can exacerbate skin lesions. A key innovation is the use of MERFISH technology, which maps gene activity within individual cells. This will reveal how specific genes are activated or suppressed in response to stimuli, providing insights into how skin adapts over time at the single-cell level. By comparing normal and CLE skin models, they will identify unique pathways involved in disease progression in CLE, offering potential targets for new therapeutic strategies.

The results of the project will be 3D skin models that mimic the structure and environment of human skin, enabling a wide range of experimental applications, including more rapid and ethical drug discovery. The project will also deliver the identification of pathways and molecular regulators involved in CLE and skin responses to UV and mechanical stimuli, supporting targeted treatment development and improved patient outcomes.

Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2024

Geography: Denmark

The ATHENA project will explore the untapped potential of stratum corneum nanotexture (SCN, the nanoscale morphology of the outermost skin layer) to advance research and clinical evaluations of challenging-to-diagnose conditions: psoriasis, hand eczema (HE), and actinic keratosis (AK). Edwin En-Te Hwu’s MIDAS group has previously demonstrated that deep learning models could classify atopic dermatitis severity through SCN with high accuracy. Building on these findings, ATHENA aims to identify disease phenotypes across ethnicities and skin phototypes to optimize treatment strategies. ATHENA will: a) collect 1,050 stratum corneum tape strip samples from five countries across four continents, b) build a large dataset of 13,500 SCN images, c) develop self-supervised deep learning models to correlate SCN with skin conditions, and d) explore and identify robust SCN biomarkers for skin diseases. The non-invasive stratum corneum tape strip sampling method is painless and repeatable, causing no tissue damage and allowing frequent monitoring of therapy and disease progression. This method enables patients to collect samples at home for remote analysis, facilitating early detection and intervention to reduce social and economic burden.

Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2024

Geography: Denmark

Julián Valero’s project explores an innovative approach for targeted drug delivery into the skin through the utilization of RNA aptamers (RNA snippets that are capable of binding to specific targets with high affinity and specificity). In collaboration with Patrizia Stoitzner and Helen Strandt (Medical University Innsbruck), Steffen Thiel (Aarhus University), Claus Johansen (Aarhus University Hospital) and Niels Schaft (University Hospital Erlangen), Julián Valero and his team will develop chemically modified RNA aptamers to target Langerhans cells (LC) or to block immune responses, aiming to develop treatment options for the autoimmune disease vitiligo. This disease is characterized by the infiltration of autoreactive cytotoxic T cells into the skin causing destruction of melanocytes important for producing skin pigments as UV-protection shield. The project will explore different approaches to dampen the autoimmune process during vitiligo, including the potential of local delivery of (i) anti-inflammatory molecules, (ii) antigenic peptides to reprogram CD4+T cells to regulatory T cells and (iii) immuno-blocking aptamers.

This project may enable development of innovative skin vaccination strategies and local anti-inflammatory treatment. Ultimately, this research holds the potential to alter skin-targeted therapies, enhance immune responses, and mitigate off-target effects by cell-specific delivery of novel vaccines.

Grant category: Research Grants in open competition

Year: 2024

Geography: Denmark

Ann-Marie Schoos’ project explores atopic dermatitis (AD), which affects about 1 in 5 children. The disease burden of AD varies; some outgrow their disease while others have persistent symptoms. The reasons behind these different outcomes are not well understood and are not addressed by current treatments. Biological markers (biomarkers) can help us understand the disease better and, ideally, help predict, prevent, or treat it more effectively. Proteins can be used as biomarkers and appear in the blood due to secretion or cell damage. While there have been studies identifying such biomarkers (using proteomics) in adults, there is limited research on children, especially in relation to the early stages of AD. To understand the processes involved in early development of AD, Ann-Marie Schoos’ project will explore a novel, large-scale panel of blood-borne proteins measured before and after disease development (at birth, 6 months, 18 months, and 6 years of age) in the well-characterized COPSAC2010 cohort. The children of this cohort have been followed intensely throughout childhood with longitudinal (i.e., over time) measurements of inflammation, allergy, immune data, and genetics among others.

Ann-Marie Schoos’ project hopes to show that a simple blood test in early childhood can predict which children are at high risk of developing AD and who will have a severe and persistent disease course. This could lead to personalized prevention or treatment strategies, improving the quality of life for these children.

Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants

Year: 2024

Geography: Denmark

Videnskab.dk will further develop the existing initiative Forskerne Formidler (Eng. Researchers Communicate), now with an expanded international focus. The overall purpose of Forskerne Formidler is to provide easy access for the public to the science that shapes the world, directly from the scientists themselves. With a continuation of the program and platform it will focus on the development of three different areas: new genres and improvement of quality for existing, courses and training in dissemination for scientists, and international distribution, collaboration and network within academic journalism.

Videnskab.dk is Denmark’s leading popular science media with around 1 million monthly users. The media is an independent source of daily science news, features and other quality content in many different formats.

Forskerne Formidler is supported by the LEO Foundation alongside the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Lundbeck Foundation, and the Augustinus Foundation.

Read more about Forskerne Formidler

Grant category: LEO Foundation Dr Abildgaard Fellowships

Year: 2024

Geography: Denmark

Project title: Checkpoint receptor pathways as new targets for the treatment of skin fibrosis

Fellowship theme: Advanced Therapeutics Research in Skin Diseases

Skin fibrosis results in thick and stiff skin with a limited barrier function. This causes an increased risk of infections, pain and reduced function. No cure is available, and treatment options are limited. Stinne Ravn Greisen’s vision is to improve the treatment of skin fibrosis. To do this, she will advance our understanding of how the immune system and its regulatory pathways contribute to the development of skin fibrosis.

Skin fibrosis is a result of a complex interplay between an overactive immune system and excessive production of proteins supporting the connective tissue. This is exemplified in the systemic autoimmune disease scleroderma, and in localized keloid scarring. She hypothesize that immune regulatory pathways play a central role in the development of skin fibrosis, and in this project, she will: 1. Investigate fibrosis in skin samples from scleroderma skin, keloid scars and healthy volunteers, where she will focus on how immune regulatory pathways affect the interaction between immune cells and production of connective tissue material. 2. Establish a skin model to test potential new treatment options, and to understand how the immune cells work in a complex environment. 3. Use a mouse model to better understand the development of skin fibrosis and to test potential new treatment options.

The complex interaction between the immune system and fibrosis development is still poorly understood, which explains the limited treatment options for skin fibrosis. Stinne Ravn Greisen’s project will contribute to a detailed understanding of the immune mechanisms contributing to skin fibrosis. This knowledge is essential to develop new and better treatments. The outcome of her project will benefit patients with skin fibrosis as a result of scleroderma or keloid scarring but will also increase our fundamental understanding of the fibrotic process which is involved in multiple conditions including systemic inflammatory diseases, cancers, and cardiovascular diseases.

Grant category: LEO Foundation Dr Abildgaard Fellowships

Year: 2024

Geography: Denmark

Project title: Personalized medicine in dermatology: Algorithm assisted early identification of high-risk patients with hidradenitis suppurativa – initiation of prompt treatment in order to avoid disease progression

Fellowship theme: Systems Medicine in Dermatology

Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that causes the formation of painful, impairing and suppurating boils. It plagues 1% of the global population at great cost to both the individual and society. While effective treatments exist, the most effective forms are expensive, and their use is restricted to patients with severe disease. Building on his expertise within clinical research, complex data analysis of genetic and environmental risk factors and construction of temporal disease trajectories, Rune Andersen’s research initiative aims at providing HS patients with individual risk assessment of disease progression and development of severe comorbidities.

Rune Andersen’s vision is to initiate personalized medicine within dermatology by creating a tool that can identify HS patients with a high risk of disease progression so that prompt preventive treatment at an early stage can be initiated.

To do so Rune Andersen and his group will take advantage of large established clinical cohorts, and through state-of-the-art techniques within datamining, clinical epidemiology, population genetics, and molecular biomedicine, he will uncover risk factors of individual disease progression and the development of severe comorbidities. This information is to be used to develop and validate predictive algorithms that can help in the transition from treatment to prevention.

Completion of this project will allow Rune Andersen to transition from standard of care to personalized medicine within HS by focusing on prevention of disease progression and comorbidity development rather than treatment. This will improve both patient welfare, and public resource-management and expenditures.