- Education
-
Research
Current research
Talent
-
Collaboration
Businesses
Government agencies and institutions
Alumni
-
About AU
Organisation
Job at AU
In a new professorship financed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Thomas Willnow will establish a new research group at Aarhus University. Here, he will study why diabetes and obesity are among the biggest risk factors of Alzheimer’s.
2019.12.05 |
Thomas Willnow is a new professor at the Department of Biomedicine. Photo: D. Aussenhofer.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia among the elderly. It is believed that almost half of all women and a third of all men over the age of 85 suffer from the disease. In addition to age, metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes comprise the most central risk factors for dementia, with e.g. diabetes patients being three times more likely than others to develop Alzheimer’s.
Together with his new research group at the Department of Biomedicine, Thomas Willnow will study why and how these metabolic risk factors have an impact on the health of the brain and how they cause Alzheimer’s. The goal is to develop new approaches such as lifestyle changes or new drugs that can combat the disease, which threatens to develop into one of the most devastating health issues in ageing populations in many countries around the world.
Thomas Willnow’s professorship, which he is undertaking alongside his current research in Berlin, is funded by a Laureate Research Grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The grant totalling almost DKK 50 million and made last year.
Professor, DMSc Thomas Willnow
Aarhus University, Department of Biomedicine and
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association
Email: tew@biomed.au.dk