Rasmus Kock Flygaard awarded a Hallas-Møller Emerging Investigator grant
Postdoc Rasmus Kock Flygaard has been awarded a Hallas-Møller Emerging Investigator grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation of DKK 10 million (Euro 1,34 million) over the next five years to establish a research group at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Aarhus University to study a molecule that is important for the survival of the body's cells.
Bacteria and mitochondria contain a unique building block in their membrane systems called cardiolipin. This lipid molecule is important for maintaining the function of the membranes, as well as ensuring the structural and functional integrity of membrane protein complexes that are important for cell survival. With the Hallas-Møller Emerging Investigator grant, Rasmus Kock Flygaard will establish a research group that will study how cardiolipin is synthesized and map the structures of the various enzymes in bacteria and mitochondria, which are used for this process.
Rasmus Kock Flygaard: "I am very grateful and proud to receive a Hallas-Møller Emerging Investigator grant - of which only four are awarded per year in the whole country - which enables me to start my own research group. In a longer perspective, the goal of my new research group is to investigate whether cardiolipin synthesis enzymes in mitochondria from human parasitic organisms can be targets for therapeutic treatment.”
About the Hallas-Møller Emerging Investigator grant
The purpose of the Hallas-Møller Emerging Investigator scholarships is to support and strengthen the development of young and promising research leaders in Denmark with new and ambitious projects that will bring new and important knowledge within life sciences and basic biomedicine with a focus on health and disease.
Rasmus Kock Flygaard's research career
Rasmus carried out his PhD studies at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics (MBG), AU, where he studied regulatory mechanisms of protein synthesis in bacteria and eukaryotic cells, focusing on determining structures of ribosomes in complex with regulatory factors. Rasmus then moved to Stockholm, where he did research for two years at the renowned Science for Life Laboratory and Stockholm University, with a particular focus on structure determination of protein complexes from mitochondrial membranes, before returning as a postdoc at MBG.
Throughout his postdoctoral studies in Stockholm, Rasmus has published several scientific articles demonstrating hitherto unknown architectural adaptations of protein complexes from mitochondria, particularly shown in an article recently published in Nature, which shows a complete respiratory supercomplex for the first time.
Common to all the mitochondrial protein complexes that Rasmus has worked with is the importance of cardiolipin, which acts as a molecular glue and prevents the complexes from falling apart. The insight into this function of cardiolipin will now inspire Rasmus' research group to study how this lipid is synthesized by different types of enzymes and incorporated into large protein complexes.
For further information, please contact
Postdoc Rasmus Kock Flygaard
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics
Aarhus Universitet, Denmark
rkf@mbg.au.dk