Danish version

The Danish Diabetes Academy’s Young Investigator Award is presented each year to a researcher below the age of 40 who has demonstrated ‘excellence, innovation, passion and commitment in Danish diabetes research’.

The prize was presented at the Danish Diabetes Academy Annual Day on 12 November 2019.

At the forefront of research on genetics and overweight

Tune Pers, 38, Associate Professor in Data Science at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, is this year’s recipient of the Danish Diabetes Academy’s Young Investigator Award.

He is receiving the prize because, globally speaking, he is at the forefront of research in the field of genetics and overweight, which have much more to do with each other than has been thought hitherto. Using a method whose development he led, he succeeded in comparing as many as 300,000 people’s genetic data with their BMIs. The result was that the researchers found 147 specific regions in the human genome that affect either how much one weighs as an adult or where fat forms in the body.

‘Slim people often think that the overweight can just pull themselves together. Our study shows that it isn’t like that’, says Tune Pers.

He hopes ultimately to discover how the brain regulates our metabolism. ‘If we can find that out, obesity will become a disease we can cure as we cure all kinds of other diseases’, he says.

Read more
Read more about Tune H. Pers and his research in his profile (Danish version)
See the nomination of Tune H. Pers
See the CV and publication list of Tune H. Pers

Contact
Associate Professor Tune Pers
Tune.pers@sund.ku.dk

Managing Director, Danish Diabetes Academy
Tore S. Christiansen
tore.christiansen@rsyd.dk
Tel. 29646764