Camilla Myrup Holst has been an outstanding and very productive PhD student studying the base excision repair pathway, which repairs a large fraction of the DNA lesions that continuously arise in all our cells. Using a broad spectrum of subjects ranging from human centenarians to the exceptionally long living bowhead whale, she produced 3 published papers in excellent journals plus one which is in revision for Aging Cell. Her results expand the knowledge of molecular mechanisms involved in regulation of base excision repair, and the implications it may have in the aging human brain.

At the same time, Camilla assisted very dedicated and professionally with the daily supervision of a total of 5 bachelor, 4 molecular biology, and 6 master thesis projects performed in in the group during the 3 years of her PhD. These students have often expressed their genuine gratitude for the supervision and guidance that Camilla has provided.

Camilla contributed significantly to the social life and wellbeing not only of her immediate surrounding but also the Institute as a whole.

Laust Bavnhøj has been the driving force on a challenging project on cellular glucose uptake in plants. Glucose is the most important source of fuel for life on earth. His work, published in two Nature Plants papers presents the first comprehensive and detailed analysis on sugar transport in the entire plant kingdom. The second paper was described by the three reviewers as “breakthrough work” that was “a great accomplishment”, “an excellent contribution, even historic”, concluding that “this work breaks new ground in the field and represents a major advance in plant physiology and membrane transport.” At his PhD defence, both external opponents stated that this was the most impressive thesis they had read in their career.

Line Marie Christiansen took on a very challenging PhD project on “de-orphanizing” and determining the structure and mechanism of the Neo1 type P4B-ATPases. Line Marie succeeded by expressing the unstable Neo1 protein, establishing a functional assay, determining several cryo-EM structures, and providing samples for native mass-spectrometry.

Beside her scientific commitments, Line Marie has been strongly engaged in activities and events at the Institute and Faculty level. Throughout her PhD she has been a member of the MBG PhD association, two years as President. Within the PhD association, she was the main coordinator of the organization committee for three PhD conferences dealing with the challenge to adapt one of them to a virtual format with short notice. The PhD association has benefitted strongly from Line Marie’s organisational skill, her ability to find solutions and meet deadlines. As one of the nominators phrased it: ‘As a member of the PhD association, I can confidently say that the association would not stand as strong today without the work and managing skills of Line Marie’. Line Marie has also been the PhD representative at the Institute Forum and the MBG PhD program committee. Furthermore, she was an elected member of the Academic research council at the Faculty of Natural Science. Line Marie has made a very important contribution to the improvement the PhD course on “Science Teaching”, which was to the benefit of all PhD students at NAT and TECH. She also contributed significantly to the MBG PhD career day and to the introduction of the PhD wellbeing conversations we have at MBG. I can therefore only reuse the words of the before cited nominator, ‘without the engagement of Line Marie the PhD program would not stand as strong as it does today’.