Strategic Research Centres established at SSI
31 August 2010
Statens Serum Institut recently became host to three new strategic research centres established by funds granted in 2009 by the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation.
DANCARD
Dancard, the Danish Centre for Antibiotic Research and Development, is a multidisciplinary cooperation of 11 research institutions and enterprises.
DANCARD will focus on developing new antibiotics and enhancing the ac-tivity of existing antibiotics. Research will be made in ways that circumvent resistance e.g. by restraining resistance mechanisms in bacteria. And new methods will be developed to investigate and screen for antibiotic activity to e.g. enhance the effect of antibiotics in the individual patient.
The centre has received a 6-year grant of DKK 31m, of which SSI’s share amounts to approx. DKK 10m.
The Centre for Fetal Programming
CFP is a research collaboration project cover-ing the University of Copenhagen, Steno Diabetes Center, Aarhus University, Harvard University and Statens Serum Institut.
The centre’s research activities comprise an epidemiological, an animal ex-perimental and a human physiological part. The aim is to investigate how factors at the fetal stage impact fetal development, and how such impacts may be related to the subsequent development of diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, allergy, mental illnesses and bone diseases.
The centre has received a 5-year grant of DKK 34m, of which SSI will re-ceive DKK 13.5m for the epidemiological research in fetal programming. Read more about CFP...
The Centre for Nano-vaccines
The Centre for Nano-vaccines is a research collaboration project comprising seven European research institutions.
The project aims at establishing a centre in the Øresund region that can quickly and efficiently design and develop vaccines against some of the most widespread infectious diseases in the world, such as influenza, tuber-culosis and type A streptococci. Current vaccines are either not sufficiently effective (TB and influenza) or no vaccine exists (streptococci).
The centre will apply a number of new advanced nanotechnology and bio-technology methods to facilitate the optimal design of vaccines with tailoring of the required immune defense in the lungs’ mucous membrane. The brand new scanning technology to be applied in the trials with the new vaccines will enable researchers to closely follow how diseases develop in living or-ganisms.
The centre has received a grant of DKK 36m, of which SSI’s share is approx. DKK 10m.
Learn more about Centre for Nano-Vaccines