Grants to 22 young researchers make Danish diabetes research even stronger
The already-strong Danish diabetes research environment is set to become even stronger. The Danish Diabetes Academy (DDA) has today awarded funding to 22 talented researchers, enabling 12 of them to carry out a PhD, 10 to engage in postdoc studies, and four research centres to get the boost that outstanding visiting professors in diabetes can provide.
The new Chair of the DDA’s Board of Directors, Professor Allan Flyvbjerg, who is CEO of the Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen, is confident that the young research talents will make a significant mark both nationally and internationally.
‘Our international assessors are saying that they have never seen such a fantastic, highly qualified field or such stiff competition’, he says.
Allan Flyvbjerg has taken over the chair from Professor Henning Beck-Nielsen of the University of Southern Denmark, and a new element in the DDA’s second five years is the focus on a constructive and fruitful collaboration with the medical and pharmaceutical industry.
The industry’s interest in research came through clearly in the applications. About 20% of applications were concerned with fatty liver disease, something that the industry is currently trying to find an effective treatment for.
‘This means that some of the work we are supporting now is likely to benefit people relatively soon’, says Allan Flyvbjerg.
Many other projects are far removed from industry and the treatment of people with diabetes - they involve basic research to create new fundamental knowledge – but generally the range of research topics is impressively wide.
‘Simplifying somewhat, they range from seeing whether there is a prospect of developing new drugs to counteract the fact that we are growing older and getting less exercise, to the connection between foetal weight and maternal overweight, to how best to help young people with type 1 diabetes to control their diabetes’, he says.
A total of 30 million kroner has been allocated in this round.
The Danish Diabetes Academy was founded in 2012; it is supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Danish universities and university hospitals. Its aim is to strengthen Danish diabetes research and treatment by helping to train the diabetes researchers and practitioners of the future.
The grant recipients can be seen in the lists below:
