by Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld, Functional Genomics and Metabolism Research Unit, University of Southern Denmark
Host: Henriette Kirchner
Institute for Humane Genetics
Biosketch:
Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld studied Biochemistry and received undergraduate training in Physiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology and in 2008 obtained a PhD in Cell Biology from University of Kiel, Germany.
Between 2009-2013 he worked as postdoctoral researcher with Professor Jens Brüning at the Institute for Genetics, Köln, Germany where he delineated novel noncoding RNA (microRNA) signaling pathways controlling liver glucose homeostasis in transgenic mice and human type 2 diabetic mellitus (T2D) patients (Kornfeld 2013 Nature). In 2014, he obtained a Emmy-Noether Programme Grant for Scientific Excellence from the German Research Foundation DFG, and started his independent research group at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research (MPI-MR) in Köln. At the MPI-MR, his work focussed on noncoding RNA regulatory principles in adipose tissue plasticity and thermogenesis and how these affect energy homeostasis and the development of metabolic diseases like obesity and T2D.
In 2016, he obtained an European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for his interest in liver metabolic regulation by long noncoding RNAs and intergenerational epigenetic programming of metabolism by germline noncoding RNAs.
Since 2018, Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld was recruited as Full Danish Diabetes Academy (DDA) Professor for Molecular Biology of Metabolic Disease and is Co-Founder of the NNF-funded Center for Adipocyte Signaling (ADIPOSIGN).
