Major grant strengthens research into and treatment of psoriasis
Eight researchers around the world have received a total of DKK 30 million from the LEO Foundation’s latest funding round. Among the recipients are Associate Professor Claus Johansen of Aarhus University, who will receive DKK 3.2 million to examine the autoimmune characteristics of psoriasis, in the hope of developing new approaches to the treatment of the disease.
More than 200,000 people in Denmark suffer from psoriasis of the skin and joints. Psoriasis is an autoimmune disease, i.e. a disease in which the immune system’s T-cells, in error, attack and destroy the body’s own cells.
In the project that the LEO Foundation is supporting with a DKK 3.2 million grant, Associate Professor and Molecular Biologist Claus Johansen from the Department of Clinical Medicine will investigate the protein ERAP2 and the role that it plays in connection with the development of psoriasis. If they succeed in defining and clarifying the protein and its role, Claus Johansen and his research colleagues can contribute new knowledge about the autoimmune characteristics associated with psoriasis, which hopefully could lead to new approaches to the treatment of the disease.
This coverage is partly based on press material from the LEO Foundation.
Contact
Associate Professor and Molecular Biologist Claus Johansen
Aarhus University, Department of Clinical Medicine and
Aarhus University Hospital, Department of Dermatology
Mobile: +45 28 15 60 65
E-mail: claus.johansen@clin.au.dk