Having put Danish cancer research on the global map, Jens Overgaard from AU and AUH is being rewarded for his long-standing contribution in the field of experimental and clinical cancer research. He is the 2015 recipient of the Rigmor and Carl Holst-Knudsen Award for Scientific Research.

2015.06.04 | Helle Horskjær Hansen

Jens Overgaard from AU and AUH is being rewarded for his long-standing contribution in the field of experimental and clinical cancer research

Jens Overgaard began his research career immediately after his final examination for the Master’s degree at what was then the Cancer Research Institute in Aarhus (which later became the Department of Experimental Clinical Oncology). Inspired by his father, he began several years of research into the possibility of utilising heat together with ionising radiation in the treatment of cancerous tumours.

This is the research for which Jens Overgaard now receives the Rigmor and Carl Holst-Knudsen Award for Scientific Research.

At the cancer research institute he established a research group which subsequently developed into the centre that exists today – a centre for the development of cancer treatment, in particular radiotherapy.

His primary research objectives have been to develop radiotherapy and a large part of the credit for the significantly better radiotherapy that many patients receive today goes to Jens Overgaard.

In recent years his research group has also focused on the technical development of radiotherapy. In 2008, they took the initiative to found the National Centre for the Development of Radiotherapy. The centre, which is based at Aarhus University, is now one of the world's strongest research environments in the field of radiotherapy. This has also meant that on the basis of their application, Aarhus was qualified to house the Danish National Centre for Particle Radiotherapy.

Jens Overgaard is currently head of the Department of Experimental Clinical Oncology, one of the very active research departments at Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital.