Thomas Daubjerg Madsen appointed Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Sciences
As of 1 September 2026, Thomas Daubjerg Madsen is appointed Assistant Professor and group leader at the Department of Biomedical Sciences (BMI) in a position of four years following funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation's Emerging Investigator program. Thomas’ research is focused on the biology of secretory organs and their role in metabolic and inflammatory disease.
Thomas Daubjerg Madsen's research aims to understand how secretory organs - such as the pancreas or intestines – maintain an enormously high protein production without breaking down, and to elucidate how faults in their secretory machinery seed metabolic and inflammatory diseases.
Thomas joins BMI from a position at Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and becomes part of the Translational Metabolism division at BMI.
Current research
Thomas’ Emerging Investigator project aims to elucidate how the pancreas is safeguarded from inflammation and prediabetic development by a microscopic layer of glycans.
Thomas and his research group will dissect how a wrong diet compromises this protective layer and investigates new intervention strategies to restore the glycans and protect the pancreas from dysfunction in its insulin production.
The project fits into Thomas’ larger collaborative network, both nationally and internationally, where he studies glycans in lipid metabolism, milk and saliva production, peptide hormones, and cancer biology.
Unique insight into the development of cancer
In the paper Myeloid States Predict Fate of Premalignant Lesions Thomas’ results show insights into the initial changes in the development of cancer. The work consolidates methods for recording videos in living mice and directly correlates with comprehensive biochemical data using cutting-edge transcriptomic and iterative staining techniques – a workflow that Thomas developed at the National Institutes of Health.
These techniques will provide the foundation for his new line of research on secretion and inflammation and their relation to glycosylation during metabolic and inflammatory diseases in secretory organs.
Thomas on the appointment:
"I have always been impressed by the open and collaborative environment at BMI, and I am now very proud of this opportunity to serve as a group leader alongside some of the sharpest minds in metabolic research”.
Thomas Daubjerg Madsen holds degrees in biochemistry and human biology from the University of Copenhagen, a PhD in glycobiology and a Postdoc in intravital microscopy from the National Institutes of Health.
A very warm welcome to Thomas and his research group.