Christoffer Laustsen receives Young Investigator Prize 2022

He is an expert in scanning brain cells, a professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine – and he is not yet 40. Now Christoffer Laustsen has also received the Lundbeck Foundation’s Young Investigator Prize 2022.

Christoffer Laustsen is this year’s recipient of the Lundbeck Foundation’s Young Investigator Prize. In 2018, he received a Lundbeck Foundation Fellowship, which made it possible for him to set up his own research group. Photo: Lundbeckfonden

The human brain functions, amongst other things, as a delicate barometer of disease – provided, of course, that you have the necessary knowledge and data power to render visible the well-hidden information that hides in the brain cells. This is what professor Christoffer Laustsen has demonstrated through a number of scientific studies, for which work he is now being rewarded with the Lundbeck Foundation’s Young Investigator Prize 2022.

Christoffer Laustsen, who is head of the MR Research Centre at Aarhus University, conducts research into the metabolism of brain cells. He explains that when illness or traumatic injuries occur in the brain – for example because of cancer, dementia or stroke – this affects and changes the metabolism of the brain cells. These biochemical changes contain a lot of information that can give a better understanding of brain diseases – and this information can be accessed using a so-called hyperpolarised MRI scanner.

There are just 25 of these MRI scanners around the world, and one of them is at Aarhus University. A hyperpolarised MRI scanner can amplify a signal from a cell 10,000 times, allowing us to gain a detailed insight into the progression of a brain disease. According to Christoffer Laustsen, this can provide knowledge about how to develop new and more individual patient treatments.

The Lundbeck Foundation’s Young Investigator Award is worth DKK 1 million. Of this, DKK 700,000 is earmarked for research, while the remainder is a personal prize.

Contact

Professor Christoffer Laustsen
Aarhus University, Department of Clinical Medicine, MR Research Centre
E-mail: cl@clin.au.dk
Mobile: +45 2443 9141

This coverage is based on press material from the Lundbeck Foundation.