DKK 10 million Lundbeck fellowship to young UCPH scientist

Assistant Professor Amelie Stein from the Department of Biology received a personal grant of DKK 10 million on Wednesday 24th October. With the grant, she can fully concentrate on her research for the next five years.

Amelie Stein does research on gene variation’s effect on proteins. Even though you can sequence the human genome in no time nowadays, each genome has a number of variations that we have no idea about the significance of.

The money will be used to investigate the influence of gene variations on the proteins in our body.

“Only one per cent of our genome codes for proteins, yet proteins carry out the vast majority of functions in the body – such as the transport of oxygen in the blood – so I’m studying a really important one percent. My goal is to develop methods to predict how the protein variations affect the cell, and to be able to identify those that are the cause of disease,” she says.

To benefit future generations

Amelie Stein has named her research project after her young daughter, who is a toddler. She explains that a premature death in the family inspired her current research, and that it is her hope that her daughter’s generation is able to benefit from her research results.

This – and more – according to Amelie Stein in her presentation video, which was produced in collaboration with the Lundbeck Foundation:

Fellowship develops research managers

“Our five new fellows [see the other beneficiaries here, ed.] have a unique opportunity to conduct focussed and concentrated research over a five-year period, where they will also build up a research group and develop themselves as heads of research. Their research ranges from from blood clots in the brain, to cancer evolution, to gut feelings. But all their projects have the potential to revolutionise our understanding of the field,” says Anne-Marie Engel, head of the talent and career programmes in the Lundbeck Foundation in a press release.