1. oktober 2024

Congratulations to Eva Hoffmann and Hans Wandall

The board of the Danish National Research Foundation has decided to support the establishment of two new DNRF Centers of Excellence at ICMM.

The Centers of Excellence will conduct groundbreaking and innovative research that will help maintain Denmark’s position as one of the world’s leading research countries.

For Eva Hoffmann's new center "Center for Fertility and Inheritance (CFI)" the foundation is prepared to grant up to 69,774,700 DKK. 

For Hans Wandall's new center "Center for Glycocalyx Research (CGR)" the foundation is prepared to grant up to 59,999,000 DKK.

Center for Fertility and Inheritance (CFI) will “explore directly in our germline and epigenetic regulation and to what extent their dysregulation contributes towards infertility and congenital disorders. The unique and complementary expertise of the PIs and our extensive biobanks and access to material, allow us to create a unique center that both facilitates excellence in interdisciplinary research and facilitates development of the next-generation of scientists. We will focus on the following asoects:

  • The full spectrum of (epi)genome changes
  • The mechanisms that cause genomic changes
  • The robustness of the molecular mechanisms"

The PIs in the center will be Eva Hoffmann, Kristian Almstrup, Kathleen Stewart-Morgan, Daniel Messerschmidt, Mads Lerdrup, Tom Miller and  Andrew Blackford from ICMM, and Mads Frost Bertelsen, Christina Hvilsom from Copenhagen ZOO.

Center for Glycocalyx Research (CGR) will "aim to redefine how the cell membrane is organized and functions, and how glycans are key to shaping a dynamic, yet stable cell membrane securing cellular and tissue stability and health. We will examine how the controlled expression of glycosyltransferases and glycan binding proteins have the ability to regulate protein functions, through an "epiproteome" similar to cells ability to regulate the genome through an epigenome. This is a new conception placing the glycocalyx centerstage to provide resistance against internal and external threats, including host-pathogen interactions."

The PIs in the center will be Hans Wandall, Katrine Schjoldager, Hiren Joshi, Rebecca Miller, Sergey Vakhrushev, Adnan Halim from ICMM, Jesper Velgaard Olsen from CPR and Sally Dabelsteen from Odontology.

Both centers are expected to open in 2025. 

Read more in the press release from DNRF.
Read more about the new center.

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