Tor Biering-Sørensen to become new professor at Department of Biomedical Sciences

Tor has since 2019 been Associate Professor at Department of Biomedical Sciences (BMI). He is now appointed professor at BMI, where he has established a research group focusing on translational cardiology and pragmatic randomized studies.

The Centre for Translational Cardiology and Pragmatic Randomized Experiments (CTCPR) is a research centre with a sub-department entitled the Cardiovascular Non-Invasive Imaging Research Laboratory (CIRL). CIRL is to conduct research projects using ultrasound scans of the heart trying to identify risk groups for heart disease, as well as to carry out minor mechanical randomized controlled trials to test new medicines to prevent heart disease.

CTCPR is a collaboration between the Department of Biomedical Sciences (BMI), the University of Copenhagen, and the Department of Cardiology, Herlev and Gentofte Hospital (HGH). The centre was created by Tor Biering-Sørensen with the purpose of using the Danish registers to identify, invite, and monitor participants in clinical trials. The collaboration means that novel basic research discoveries at BMI can be quickly tested in the form of mechanistic phase II randomized controlled trials in the clinic on HGH. CTCPR also carries out large-scale pragmatic phase III randomized controlled trials in which participants are identified, invited, randomized, and followed via the Danish registers. In 2021, CTCPR conducted the first pilot study, in which 12,500 people in four weeks were randomized to two types of influenza vaccine (DNAFLU-1). The DANFLU-1 study has ensured that CTPCPR is to carry out the world’s largest randomized controlled trial (DANFLU-2) where 208,000 Danish citizens are scheduled to be randomized with two different influenza vaccines. CTCPR is thus a unique new centre that benefits from the Danish registers and will be able to carry out translational research and large randomized studies effectively, quickly, and significantly cheaper than previously.

The aim is to test and merge new research methods that provide rapid responses to potential effect for the benefit of the patients. The vision for all research in CTCPR is to develop treatments which in the long term will make the distance between the research and implementation of new treatments in hospital wards shorter than it is today.

Tor Biering-Sørensen is a medical doctor with a PhD from the University of Copenhagen from 2015. After completing his PhD in Denmark, he moved to Boston, USA, where he worked with ultrasound of the heart (echocardiography) and large randomized trials at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. In addition to his medical degree and PhD from the University of Copenhagen, Tor has a Master of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health from 2018 and is currently attaining a master's degree from Oxford University in randomized controlled trials, which is completed in 2022.

Tor is already supervising a large number of postdocs, PhD students, and medical students, and has won prizes both nationally and internationally for his research.

"It's a great honour to be a professor at Department of Biomedical Sciences, the University of Copenhagen, and I'm looking forward to expanding the fantastic collaboration across basic research and clinical research that we've already created over the past three years. It is of great benefit to the patients that the knowledge obtained from basic research at the Panum Institute can be tested and implemented in the treatment of patients in the clinic in a short period of time," says Tor Biering-Sørensen.

Head of Department Cathrine Ørskov looks forward to welcoming Tor Biering-Sørensen to his new position at the department and says: "Despite his young age, Tor is internationally known for his research, and I'm very pleased that he has chosen to establish his research group here at BMI. I have no doubt that Tor will strengthen the cardiological research at our department and our ability to translate basic research results into new approaches to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of heart disease."

Tor will contribute to the research into the research theme "Physiology of Circulation, Kidney and Lung", where he will work closely with Professor Thomas Jespersen’s group among many other BMI researchers.