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Lundbeck Foundation grants DKK 9.7 million to early career researchers at the Faculty of Natural Sciences

Four early career researchers at Nat have just received grants from the Lundbeck Foundation as part of their postdoc programmes. The grants will provide two or three years of work within health science research for the recipients.

[Translate to English:] Foto: AU Foto

The Lundbeck Foundation's postdoc grants are awarded to particularly talented researchers who want to specialise further to forge a long career in research. On average, each project has received a little more than DKK 2 million to be paid over two to three years.

In total, 252 early career researchers applied for a grant, and all applications that met the requirements were assessed by the foundation's Talent Panel, which consists of 15 senior international researchers. The amount covers a salary for the recipient as well as research funding, and the Lundbeck Foundation has paid a total of DKK 69 million to the 33 postdoc projects receiving a 2021 grant.

Four early career researchers from the Faculty of Natural Sciences will receive a total of almost DKK 9.7 million.

Postdoc Christian Jorgensen, Department of Chemistry, receives DKK 2.39 million for his project Computational modelling of the human brain lipidome, which aims to create a computer-based model of the brain's blood-brain barrier with focus on a special pump function. This pump function plays an important role in spreading medicine through the brain.

Postdoc Guifen Wu, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, receives DKK 2.39 million for his project Elucidating the connection Between 3'end modification of RNAs and their decay, which includes studies of how the body’s cells dispose of non-functional RNA.

PhD student Henrik Pedersen, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, receives DKK 2.49 million for his project, Mechanistic investigations of complement component C4A in development of Schizophrenia, which examines the mechanisms behind a schizophrenia risk factor that is normally part of the immune system.

Researcher Manish Debnath, Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO), receives DKK 2.4 million to his project, Development of chemically modified aptamers for rapid detection of disease-specific biomarkers, which focuses on developing a new test in which fluorescent molecules can bind to viruses, for example. This could help SARS COV-2 testing.