Congratulations to Mingdong Dong and Jeppe Vang Lauritsen who have been appointed Professors in Experimental Surface and Interface Science at the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Aarhus University. The appointments are effective as of 1 April 2021.

Congratulations to Alexander Zelikin who has been appointed Professor at Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Aarhus University. The appointment is effective as of 1 April 2021.

Congratulations to Professor Daniel Otzen (iNANO and MBG) and Assistant Professor Alonso Rosas-Hernández (CHEM and iNANO) who are among the new AIAS Associates. They will be part of the multidisciplinary environment at Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) and take part in facilitating and inspiring new interdisciplinary research projects and directions.

Increasing evidence has demonstrated how the microbial world is electrically connected. Electrical wire networks on the micrometer to centimeter scale have been found in many microorganisms and in diverse environments, where they are believed to play important roles in biogeochemical processes, pollutant degradation and bioenergy recovery. iNANO researchers report of another strategy for long-distance transfer of electrons.

Associate Professor Ken Howard has received the award for best paper of in the Journal of Controlled Release awarded by the Controlled Release Society and Elsevier.

How do we know, if our food tastes good, or if it has already gone bad? The startup BettaSensing, co-founded by iNANO researcher Noga Gal, has created an innovative flavor recognition technology for the food industry. Last year, the company took part in the EIT Food entrepreneurship program Seedbed, which in Denmark is based at the Department of Food Science (AU FOOD) at Aarhus University. Seedbed welcomes new applications from the Nordics now.

AU researchers join forces with world leaders to develop a new albumin-based platform for long-acting, efficient, and safer immunotherapy. Assoc. Prof. Ken Howard and his research team have published their findings in a new Nature family journal.

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases and seizures can be debilitating. Unfortunately, treatments to prevent these seizures are lacking. Jørgen Kjems from iNANO and the Department of Molecular Biology at Aarhus University and the AU spinout company, OMIICS, are partners in a new consortium, PRIME, that will seek to develop biological nano-implants - based on naturally occurring signaling pathways - that can help patients with epilepsy.

Glycine can stimulate or inhibit neurons in the brain, thereby controlling complex functions. Unraveling the three-dimensional structure of the glycine transporter, researchers have now come a big step closer to understanding the regulation of glycine in the brain. These results, which have been published in Nature, open up opportunities to find effective drugs that inhibit GlyT1 function, with major implications for the treatment of schizophrenia and other mental disorders.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation has for the first time granted project support earmarked for basic research in the natural sciences and technical disciplines. At the Faculty of Natural Sciences, six researchers, including Birgit Schiøtt and Brian Julsgaard, have received grants totalling just over DKK 17.5 million.