Grant recipients
In accordance with the grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the Danish Diabetes Academy is allocating co-financed PhD scholarships of each 550.000 DKK, Post Doc fellowships of each 600.000 DKK per year, and a number of Visiting Scientist grants.
The list below features the Danish Diabetes Academy funded PhD and Post Doc fellows, who have received a grant in 2015-2016 and a complete list of Visiting Scientist 2013-2016. Additionally, recipients of exchange travel grants 2016 are featured.
Metabolic diseases are global health challenges with a prevalence of individuals with severe overweight and/or type 2 diabetes (T2D) reaching more than 500 million. We are approaching the abyss and thus the need for better and new treatment strategies has never been greater.
Background: Obesity and type 2 diabetes represent a world-wide problem and their treatment is a growing concern. Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery (RYGB) is currently the most successful treatment with diabetes remission rates of 50-80 % and weight loss of 30% in obese individuals. Most importantly, mortality is reduced about 30 %. These results show that there are mechanisms within our own body that can cure diabetes and obesity.
Type 2 diabetes is a widespread and escalating disease worldwide. It is associated with a physiological inability to handle glucose, which leads to disease in the heart, vasculature, nerves, kidneys and eyes. Fatty liver disease is also closely related to diabetes.
In vitro produced pancreatic β-cells are a potential source for cell replacement therapies, but in order to produce safe cells for therapeutic purposes the biology underlying β-cell specification should be addressed. The objective of this project is to determine the mechanisms underlying pancreatic endocrine lineage allocation with focus on the principal endocrine lineages involved in glucose homeostasis, the α- and β-cell lineages.
Dual-hormone treatment with insulin and low-dose glucagon is a sparsely explored area except in artificial pancreas (automated) systems. However, dual-hormone treatment has the potential to improve the quality of life and glycemic control in a majority of patients with type 1 diabetes, including both patients treated with multiple daily insulin injections and with insulin pumps. Stable, liquid glucagon formulations with similar action profile as the current unstable glucagon products are under development by more companies including our collaborator Zealand Pharma.
Exercise elicits phenotypic alterations in skeletal muscle which impact positively on muscle function and metabolic health. Many of these adaptations are orchestrated by AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTORC)1, but the subcellular locations of the signaling and its exact molecular links to Diabetes-relevant downstream processes such as autophagy and mitochondrial function remain unclear.
The endocrine pancreas plays a key role in regulating the nutrient uptake and metabolism. The pancreatic β-cells respond to nutrients in the blood by increasing the insulin secretion, which in turn increases the storage of nutrients.