On Thursday (05.11) we will host Professor Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld (Molecular Biology of Metabolic Disease at the University of Southern Denmark). His lecture will be entitled: "Pharmacological activation of adipose tissue: A novel approach in next-generation obesity therapies ?". The lecture will take place at 3 p.m. in the CN lecture hall and it will be followed by a get together.

Abstract:

Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld began his independent career as an Emmy Noether- and ERC-funded Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne, Germany (2014) and has been recruited as Danish Diabetes Academy Full Professor of Molecular Biology of Cardiometabolic Diseases at the University of Southern Denmark (2018). His laboratory combines a fundamental interest in gene regulation and signal transduction with expertise in the cell biology and physiology of adipose tissue and liver dysfunction, pairing advanced next-generation sequencing with genetic and nutritional mouse models of altered energy homeostasis. A central theme is mapping and interrogating gene-regulatory processes in adipocytes at the level of microRNAs, alternative splicing and chromatin remodelling - work that was published in Nature, Nature Cell Biology and Nature Metabolism. Alongside this basic research, he pursues translational approaches — ranging from novel small molecule approaches, cell-specific gene therapy platforms to nutritional interventions — interventions that jointly aim to metabolically activate obese fat cells to promote weight loss and cardiometabolic health. He co-founded the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Adipocyte Signaling (2018), Interdisciplinary Centre for RNA Innovation and Cardiometabolic Health and Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Modelling of Human Cardiometabolic Diseases (both 2026), which strives to provide a better understanding of malregulated molecular circuits in obese adipocytes and hepatocytes, to develop advanced mRNA-based therapies correcting
gene function and test the therapeutic value of novel therapies in advanced human organoid systems.

www.kornfeldlab.com