Backed by a Novo Nordisk Foundation Laureate Research Grant of DKK 40 million, one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of metabolism is to lead a research team at DTU Biosustain. The objective is to boost knowledge about cancer cell development with a view to helping a great many people worldwide.
Professor Lars Nielsen, one of the foremost researchers in developing tools for analysing and designing complex biological systems, is to relocate his research activities from the University of Queensland in Australia to DTU Biosustain in Hørsholm, Denmark. The move follows the decision by the Novo Nordisk Foundation to award him a Laureate Research Grant in the amount of DKK 40 million over the next seven years.
The purpose of the grant is to attract some of the world’s leading researchers in the areas of biomedicine and biotechnology to Denmark, thereby reinforcing Danish research as a whole.
Henrik Wegener, Provost of DTU, is both delighted and proud that the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability has the capacity to attract such a talented person as Professor Lars Nielsen to DTU. According to the provost, the grant means that DTU can look forward to welcoming to its biotechnology environment—which is already ‘state-of-the-art’ in its chosen field—a remarkably knowledgeable and well-connected professor, who has the capacity to take the centre and DTU to a whole new level and to establish links to other, equally strong environments elsewhere in the world.
An even more attractive workplace
“Taking on Professor Lars Nielsen makes DTU an even more attractive workplace for the leading minds in the world in the field of biotechnology, and means that DTU will be viewed as an even more attractive partner for leading international universities and biotech companies.”
The primary goal of Lars Nielsen’s research will be to produce comprehensive models for explaining a major change in the metabolism of cancer cells, which also occur when culturing mammalian cells in the laboratory.
The ultimate aim is to attempt to understand the molecular and metabolic differences between cancer cells and healthy cells. By expanding knowledge about cancer cell development, the research will have the potential to benefit a great many people worldwide.
A strong research team
To tackle this assignment, Lars Nielsen will be setting up a strong research team that can help him develop a detailed model of how cancer cells and other fast-growing cells generate lactic acid—an observation recorded for the first time by Otto Warburg, the German biochemist, in 1924.
“The challenge associated with modelling the Warburg effect in animal cells—and, in fact, with most research in the field of systems biology—is that you need a wide range of experts, such as molecular biologists, specialists in fermentation, analysts with expertise in the fields of metabolomics and fluxomics, as well as statisticians, programmers, and model developers,” relates Lars Nielsen.
Considerable expertise
“DTU Biosustain has considerable expertise in these areas, and the department also has plenty of experience in performing quantitative analyses and modelling. This expertise, backed by the grant, will allow me to focus on research rather than having to spend time running and financing my own large research centre.”
The professor will be taking up his new position in June 2015, and will be working at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology until DTU Biosustain moves into its new facilities towards the end of next year. The team will, however, be set up in the centre’s existing buildings during the autumn.