Henriette Elisabeth Autzen is appointed associate professor at Department of Biomedical Sciences
As of 1 May, Henriette Elisabeth Autzen is appointed associate professor at Department of Biomedical Sciences. Henriette is moving from the Department of Biology where she has been an associate professor since February 2020.
Henriette will be employed in a permanent position on the basis of the Department's open postings last year. Henriette will be part of the research theme Molecular and Translational Pharmacology and have her daily routine on 18.5 and 22.5.
Head of Department Cathrine Ørskov says: "We are looking forward to welcoming Henriette and to the exciting competences within the field of taste receptors and structural biology that she is bringing to the Department".
Henriette's research focuses on the molecular mechanisms involved in taste signaling and metabolic homeostasis. Henriette is particularly interested in taste receptors involved in umami, sweet and bitter transduction, and exchangers that are part of the endosomal recycling system, and she is working on determining how they are activated and modulated at the molecular level.
Before Henriette became an associate professor at the Department of Biology, she was a postdoc in the lab of Yifan Cheng at University of California, San Francisco thanks to grants from the Independent Research Fund and the Lundbeck Foundation. Henriette moved back to Denmark and established her own research group at the Department of Biology, UCPH, early 2020, thanks to a NNF Hallas Møller Emerging Investigator grant in Bioscience and Basic Biomedicine "A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down: Decoding the molecular mechanisms of sweet and savory taste signaling". At the Department of Biology, Henriette has been teaching BSc and MSc courses within biochemistry, enzymology, protein science and structural biology, in addition to developing her independent research program.
About her appointment as associate professor at the Department, Henriette says: "I am thrilled about moving my lab to the Department of Biomedical Sciences, and to join such a highly interdisciplinary, translational and vibrant department. The move will certainly widen the scope of my independent research program, and I hope that my research interests, structural biology background, and my experiences as a science teacher will contribute positively to the department’s goals, research directions and research-based educations. I am particularly excited about the prospect of forming new collaborations with other groups within the department and developing a strong curriculum for students enrolled in the Basic Pharmacology course.
When Henriette moves her lab to the Department of Biomedical Sciences on 1 May, her two postdocs and one PhD student will also be joining the Department.