Education

2020               DMSci from UCPH

2002               PhD from UCPH

1998               MSc in biochemistry from McGill University, Canada

1995-1996       Student exchange to McGill University, Canada 

1995                BSc in biology from UCPH

Positions

2019-               Professor at Department of Neuroscience UCPH

2015-2018        Associate professor at Department of Neuroscience UCPH

2006-2015        Associate professor at Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, UCPH

2004-2006        Associate professor at Department of Medical Physiology, UCPH

2002-2003        Postdoc at Department of Medical Physiology, UCPH

Awards and honors

2019                 Lundbeck foundation’s Ascending Investigator Grant

2019                 Leo Danin’s Research award

2017                 NNF’ tandem program grant

2012                 Danish Independent Research Council’s career programme ‘Sapere Aude’

2008                 L’Oreal, Unesco and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences’ scholarship to ‘Young Women in Natural Sciences’

2006                 Danish Independent Research Council’s ’Young Elite Researcher’s Award’

Commissions of trust

2019 –              Panel member British Royal Society International Exchanges

2019 –              Associate Editor, Fluids and Barriers in the CNS (editorial board member 2016-)

2017-2021        Member of departmental management team at Department of Neuroscience

2016-               Head of Graduate Programme in Neuroscience, NeuroGrad

2016-               Organizer of the Neuroseminars

2013 –              Editorial Board Member, GLIA

2013-2016        Co-chair of the Society of Physiology’s special interest group “Molecular physiology of channels and transporters’

2011-2016        Member of the strategic research committee at the Faculty of Health, UCPH

2008-2015        Member of the research committee at Dept of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, UCPH          

The mammalian brain consists of a large quantity of water which is continuously shifted between the circulating blood and the brain parenchyma as well as between different compartments and cellular structures within the brain tissue. We presume that the transport of water between these different compartments is under tight control since a disturbance in the cerebral water homeostasis (with associated changes in ion concentrations) may lead to neuronal dysfunction, hydrocephalus, and/or brain edema. However, our incomplete knowledge of the molecular mechanisms responsible for the maintenance of cerebral water transport and their regulation currently prevents us from gaining a full understanding of this intricate and crucial (patho)physiological issue. With this lack of identification of the implicated transport mechanisms and their dysregulation in pathology, pharmacological therapy is essentially unavailable for potentially life-threatening conditions involving brain water accumulation, i.e. hydrocephalus, brain edema, acute liver failure, idiopathic intracranial hypertension, etc.

The focus of our laboratory is to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying water and ion homeostasis in the mammalian brain under both physiological and pathophysiological conditions. We investigate the transport mechanisms underlying cerebrospinal fluid secretion, brain extracellular fluid generation, activity-dependent glial cell swelling during stimulus-evoked K⁺ management, and dendritic beading observed during spreading depolarization. Our technical approach spans from molecular and biophysical properties of water transport proteins (including aquaporins and cotransporters) to their regulation at the cellular level and their integral function in acutely prepared brain slices and rodent in vivo models.