Dr Abildgaard Fellowship 2024
Grantee: Nikolai Loft, Senior Researcher, Dept. of Dermatology and Allergy at Herlev and Gentofte Hospital, Copenhagen University Hospital
Amount: DKK 12,000,000
Grant category: LEO Foundation Dr Abildgaard Fellowships
Year: 2024
Geography: Denmark
Project title: Optimizing treatment of psoriasis
Fellowship theme: Systems Medicine in Dermatology
Nikolai Loft’s project is dedicated to revolutionizing the treatment of psoriasis by personalizing approaches based on individual patient characteristics and needs. The focus is on determining the underlying reasons why some patients experience a loss in the effectiveness of their treatment and whether treatment of psoriasis can prevent the onset of psoriatic arthritis (PsA). By identifying predictive markers for these conditions, Nikolai Loft’s project aims to tailor treatment plans that maintain effectiveness over time and mitigate the risk of PsA and thereby improve patient outcomes substantially.
Nikolai Loft plans to identify markers that can predict loss of treatment response in patients with psoriasis and markers that can predict development of PsA. The project will capitalize on Denmark’s unique data infrastructure integrating national registries with bioresources. This will involve thorough characterization using existing registry data and additional in-depth immunological and genetic profiling using new biological samples from more than 1000 patients with psoriasis. Additionally, Nikolai Loft and his research group will, based on these findings, assess the PsA protective properties of treatments of psoriasis. The end goal is to develop models that can identify patients at risk of treatment failure or developing PsA enabling adjustments of treatment strategies to mitigate these risks.
Nikolai Loft hopes to be able to reduce the incidence of treatment failure and enhance the quality of life for individuals with psoriasis by enabling more stable and effective treatment regimens. By doing so, he hopes to decrease healthcare costs associated with switching therapies. In the long term, by preventing PsA, this research project seeks to reduce the overall burden of psoriasis and its complications. Ultimately, tailoring treatment to the individual patient’s needs.
Dr Abildgaard Fellowship 2024
Grantee: Wenning Zheng, Postdoc, LEO Foundation Skin Immunology Research Center, Dept. of Immunology and Microbiology, University of Copenhagen
Amount: DKK 12,000,000
Grant category: LEO Foundation Dr Abildgaard Fellowships
Year: 2024
Geography: Denmark
Project title: Uncoupling the contribution of systemic and site-specific immunity in inflammatory skin disorders
Fellowship theme: Advanced Therapeutics Research in Skin Diseases
Patients with skin diseases can often suffer from other conditions like asthma, arthritis and inflammatory diseases of the intestines, suggesting that these diseases may be linked by a common cause. Importantly, there is currently no tool that can be used in the clinic to measure skin disease activity regularly. In the skin, resident memory T cells (TRM) can reside for years, providing protection to old and new infections, but at times, causing inflammatory skin diseases. A portion of these cells are thought to migrate through our bodies via the blood and there is the possibility that these inflammatory T cells can land in other organs and cause disease. Finding these rather rare inflammatory T cells has been difficult.
Wenning Zheng’s research project will focus on using the blood of healthy people and patients with eczema, psoriasis, and psoriatic arthritis (PsA) to find these rare aggressive T cells. Using sensitive new assays and building on her expertise as a computational immunologist, her group at LEO Foundation Skin Immunology Research Center will employ high resolution single cell T cell clones sequencing on donor-matched blood and tissues to understand the propensity for T cells to circulate from the skin, through the blood and into other organs. Since T cells quite specifically recognize antigens through a highly-diverse receptor on their cell surface, Wenning will characterize the diversity of these receptors and combine machine learning and wet-lab methods to identify the nature of antigens that are detected by T cells. It is hoped that by understanding the precise antigens that T cells see, we can develop tools to diagnose and treat skin diseases with greater precision.
Super-krop!
Grantee: Experimentarium Science Center, Kim Gladstone Herlev, CEO of Experimentarium
Amount: DKK 9,000,000
Grant category: Standalone grants
Year: 2024
Geography: Denmark
The science center Experimentarium in Copenhagen will open a major exhibition about the human body in 2026. The exhibition is called Super-krop!, which means Super body, and aims to illustrate the interaction between the body and behavior, targeting a younger audience.
Super-krop! is supported by the LEO Foundation alongside the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Lundbeck Foundation, and Ole Kirk’s Foundation with a total of DKK 30 million.
Hand Eczema in the Fishing Industry in Greenland
Grantee: Kristina Ibler, Bispebjerg Hospital, Dronning Ingrid’s Health Center, the Greenland Fishing Industry, Greenland University, and University of Copenhagen
Amount: DKK 3,437,000
Grant category: Standalone grants
Year: 2024
Geography: Denmark
The overall vision with this research project is to improve skin health and the quality of prevention and treatment of skin diseases in Greenland and the Arctic societies in general. Around 25% of all inquiries to the health care system in Greenland relate to skin diseases. Arctic indigenous peoples have their own genetic variation and have for centuries adapted to their unique geographical environments and culture. Consequently, medical treatment regimens from other countries most often cannot be directly transferred and used in the Greenlandic health care setting. New knowledge, competences and technologies are warranted for utilization across both prevention, translational and clinical research, and practice.
20% of the Greenlandic population is employed in the fishing industry which stands for 90% of Greenland’s export, making it a critical element in a sustainable community. It is expected that around 30-50% of the employees suffer from hand eczema, often with complicating secondary bacterial infection. As such, contact dermatitis has a significant negative impact on both quality of life and productivity in Greenland. The research project aims to provide some of the missing research data on skin diseases in Greenland. It will investigate the prevalence of contact dermatitis, risk factors, biomarkers, and genetic factors associated with contact dermatitis in the seafood-processing fishing industry, as well as explore the presence of bacterial strains and how they relate to dermatitis.
Full of knowledge (Fuld af viden)
Grantee: Anne Engedal, Videnslyd A/S
Amount: DKK 1,500,000
Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants
Year: 2024
Geography: Denmark
Fuld af viden is a continuation of the well-established science podcast series ‘Kraniebrud’ from Videnslyd. The podcast will investigate interesting phenomena and topics from a fact-based perspective through discussions with invited scientists and visits to their labs and studies. The series will be hosted by experienced science journalists, who will present the listeners to all kinds of phenomena from a different unexpected perspective. The weekly episodes will have an increased focus on younger scientists and their research. It’ll optimize the auditory experience and create shorter episodes that are better suited for the podcast format than the original series.
The LEO Foundation 40th Anniversary Prize
Grantee: Gregor Jemec, Professor of Dermatology and Head of Research at Zealand University Hospital
Amount: DKK 5,000,000
Grant category: Standalone grants
Year: 2024
Geography: Denmark
Gregor Jemec is Professor of Dermatology and Head of Research at Zealand University Hospital.
He receives the LEO Foundation 40th Anniversary Prize for his extraordinary contribution to skin research – especially for his pioneering and persistent work with the chronic skin disease hidradenitis suppurativa (HS).
Gregor Jemec has been researching the skin and its diseases for the past 30 years and is one of Denmark’s most cited skin researchers. He is the author of over 800 publications and one of the world’s leading experts on HS, a skin condition that causes painful boils. Research estimates that one to four percent of the world’s population suffers from HS.
Center for Pharmaceutical Data Science Education
Grantee: The University of Copenhagen and the University of Southern Denmark
Amount: DKK 30,000,000
Grant category: Standalone grants
Year: 2024
Geography: Denmark
Center for Pharmaceutical Data Science Education is funded by the LEO Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Lundbeck Foundation with a total of DKK 123 million over a six-year period.
The new center merges two fields of study – the pharmaceutical sciences and data science – and will ensure the students’ qualifications in data science by upgrading relevant compulsory bachelor’s and master’s courses. Artificial intelligence, machine learning and the use of big data open a huge area of knowledge, new data sources and methods, which should be integrated in the best possible way in the pharmaceutical sciences education.
Epidemiology and genetics of rosacea and co-morbidities
Grantee: Ole Pedersen, Chief physician, Professor, Zealand University Hospital, Køge
Amount: DKK 2,715,598
Grant category: Research Grants in open competition
Year: 2024
Geography: Denmark
Ole Pedersen’s project aims to determine the genetic basis of rosacea and the causal connection between rosacea and its comorbidities.
Rosacea is a common chronic inflammatory skin disease of the face, which may manifest as a bulbous nose, central erythema, flushing, inflammatory papules/pustules, or broken vessels in addition to diverse eye involvement. Severe rosacea has a large impact on the patients’ quality of life, social and psychological well-being and has been linked to many systemic comorbidities including cardiovascular, psychiatric, neurological, and cancer diseases.
Ole Pedersen’s project aims to identify the genetic pathways of rosacea and determine the causal connection and modifiable risk factors to previously reported systemic comorbidities. He has recently developed a rosacea classification tool and applied it to a deep phenotyped cohort of ~55,000 Danes allowing for detailed analysis of association between rosacea, risk factors and co-morbidities. In addition, Ole Pedersen has facilitated genotyping of 500,000 Danes that can be used for genome wide association study meta-analysis with other genetic cohorts from Iceland, Finland, UK and USA to perform the so far largest genetic study on rosacea. Based on this analysis, his project will determine the genetic correlations and perform Mendelian randomization analysis of the causation between rosacea and comorbidities.
Ole Pedersen’s project may provide new understanding of disease pathogenesis and the link to systemic comorbidities, paving the way for developing new treatments and early targeted interventions.
Children’s books: Max and Meta (Max og Meta)
Grantee: Troels Gollander, Forlaget Meta
Amount: DKK 225,000
Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants
Year: 2024
Geography: Denmark
The ‘Max og Meta’ children’s book series targets 4-12-year-olds with a cartoon-like format presenting stories revolving around natural science phenomena. The series is created by an experienced duo, author Troels Gollander and illustrator Lars-Ole Nejstgaard. The project covers two new books in the series, focused on the sensory system and the body, a website targeting primary schools with free educational material related to the two new books, and a podcast exploring the topics of the book series.
The books aim to stimulate STEM interest in children and pre-teens with an educational format that is both ‘family-friendly’ and relevant for lower secondary school.
Biotech Academy Camp 2024 – Microbiology
Grantee: Victoria Francke, Biotech Academy (DTU Bioengineering)
Amount: DKK 211,260
Grant category: Education and Awareness Grants
Year: 2024
Geography: Denmark
Biotech Academy Camp is an annual recurring event where 30 high school students from all over Denmark attend a week-long science camp. The purpose of the camp is to introduce potential students to theory and laboratory work and to spur young people’s interest in STEM in an engaging and practical way.
This year the theme is microbiology, and it is free for high school students to participate. Biotech Academy Camp is run by students at the Technical University of Denmark – DTU and the University of Copenhagen.