Aarhus University Seal

Aarhus University celebrates elite partnership

The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) – Europe’s flagship for basic research in the life sciences – is including Aarhus University as its Danish partner. This will be celebrated in the Main Hall on 5 March with the inauguration of the DANDRITE neuroscience centre, which will make Aarhus a magnet for top international research into molecular and translational neuroscience.

Computer-processed image of a nerve cell.

On Tuesday 5 March, Aarhus University is celebrating two events in the Main Hall, and all members of staff are welcome to attend.

In collaboration with the Lundbeck Foundation, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) – one of the world’s leading basic research institutions in life sciences – has selected Aarhus University to represent Denmark in the Nordic EMBL Partnership of Molecular Medicine. This means that Denmark is joining a partnership that has existed for a number of years between Norway, Sweden and Finland.
Aarhus University is celebrating this agreement as well as the opening of the Danish Research Institute of Translational Neuroscience (DANDRITE), which will be the base for the Danish contribution to this prestigious partnership.

Researchers from both Health and Science and Technology are spearheading the neuroscience centre, which will roughly speaking study communication patterns and mechanisms between brain cells, what goes wrong in this communication when patients are ill, and how pharmaceuticals and treatment methods can be developed for the benefit of patients and for setting up new companies.

“Our partnership with EMBL is the result of free research, and DANDRITE will be a leader based on an infrastructure with high objectives, resources and freedom. We aim to be the first to come up with completely new ideas and to follow up on the ideas of others,” says Professor Poul Nissen, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics. He is the director of DANDRITE and will lead the centre along with Professor Poul Henning Jensen and Professor Anders Nykjær, Department of Biomedicine.

DANDRITE has very high ambitions and – in true EMBL tradition – will be supported by attracting top young research leaders from the international research environment. DANDRITE also has a declared goal to create a breeding ground for new companies.