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We can revolutionise cancer treatment within a relatively short period of time. This is the clear and ambitious message from Aarhus University's and Aarhus University Hospital's extraordinary research talent, cancer researcher Nicolai Juul Birkbak, who today receives the Jens Christian Skou Award 2020.
2020.10.07 |
Dean Lars Bo Nielsen (on the right) hands over the Skou award 2020 to Nicolai Juul Birkbak. Photo: Jann Thiele Zeiss, AU Health.
Health's most prestigious talent award is not given to just anybody. Far from it. The award is reserved for the faculty's most talented young researchers – and Nicolai Juul Birkbak is one of them.
Nicolai Juul Birkbak carries out research into cancer and investigates, among other things, evolution in cancer by searching for a better understanding of the correlation between different stages of the development of cancer cells towards the malignant stage. He also utilises his knowledge to develop new methods and examinations that can improve the course of the disease for cancer patients and increase their chances of survival.
"How does a cell turn into this malignant creature that kills you? That’s a question I really want to be able to answer. It's incredibly complex, but it's no coincidence that it happens. There's a system in it which is what fascinates me," says Nicolai Juul Birkbak on his research.
"The cancer changes all the time and therefore often develops resistance to our medicine. So roughly speaking, what we need to do is treat what’s going to happen instead of what’s already in the past. We’re continually attempting to transfer as much as possible from the research to the treatment of patients, and right now our focus is on supplementing needle biopsies with blood samples, so we get a better picture of the entire tumour’s biology, and not just a picture of what it looks like there where we stick the needle in,” he explains and continues.
"Ideally, the blood samples will one day replace the tissue samples completely, but incorporating all the details is still complicated, because the blood samples only contain small amounts of cancer DNA. However, with improved analytical methods and sequence methods, we’re continually pushing the limits of how much information we can extract from these blood samples. So I'm certain that what we're doing now will revolutionise cancer treatment as we know it today."
This year's award winner started his research career at the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby and has been on longer research stays abroad in Boston and London.
“We’re fortunate that an outstanding young researcher like Nicolai Juul Birkbak has chosen to carry out his research here at Health. He has already carved out an exceptional career for himself in cancer research, he works together with elite international researchers from world-leading universities and research institutions, and he is also exceptionally skilled at securing external funding.”
These are the words of Department Head Jørgen Frøkiær and Deputy Head of Department for Research Anne-Mette Hvas from the Department of Clinical Medicine. They recommended Nicolai Juul Birkbak for the award.
Dean of the Faculty of Health, Lars Bo Nielsen, presented the Skou award to Nicolai Juul Birkbak at an event held at Aarhus University on Wednesday afternoon. In his speech, he underlined how this year's award winner is, in many ways, reminiscent of Nobel Prize winner Jens Christian Skou.
"Like Jens Christian Skou, Nicolai Juul Birkbak is dedicated to his research. He is tenacious, ambitious and bold. I don't know many people who would dare to say aloud, as he does, that the goal of their research is to revolutionise cancer treatment. Nothing less," said Lars Bo Nielsen.
That Nicolai Juul Birkbak was to receive a talent award named after a Nobel Prize Laureate was a big surprise to him.
"Academically, it's a big pat on the back. I don’t think I’ve quite grasped what a big deal it really is yet. I think that the Skou award will give my academic celebrity factor a boost and thus have a positive effect on my work of applying for external funding. At least that’s what I hope, because I’ve got lots of ideas for projects that I’d like to begin on, and I will also use the money from the Skou award on a couple of these," he says.
Nicolai Juul Birkbak is the fifth recipient of the Jens Christian Skou award, which was awarded for the first time in 2016. The award comes with DKK 100,000 earmarked for research.
Associate Professor & PhD Nicolai Juul Birkbak
Aarhus University, Department of Clinical Medicine and
Aarhus University Hospital, Department of Molecular Medicine
Mobile: (+45) 25 39 47 79
Email: nbirkbak@clin.au.dk
Read more about Nicolai Juul Birkbak and his research in the portrait on Health’s staff page and watch the video about his research.
The Jens Christian Skou award is given annually to a researcher in the field of health science who is extraordinarily talented within his or her field of research, and who is both creative and productive.
The award is named after Jens Christian Skou, who received the Nobel Prize in 1997 and is still a source of inspiration for junior researchers. Not least at Aarhus University where Health makes an annual award around the time of Jens Christian Skou’s birthday on 8 October.
The following researchers at Health have received the Skou award:
Read more about the Jens Chr. Skou award in the article "Junior research talents to be honoured with new award at Health"