SSI researcher receives multi-million kroner grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation

Senior Researcher Heather Boyd from Statens Serum Institut (SSI) currently has a good reason to smile. She was recently named as one of the researchers to receive a large grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The award comes from a pool created to support leading and promising researchers.

Up to now, the Foundation’s Research Leader Programme has awarded 44 grants totaling 413 million kroner. Heather Boyd was awarded a 5-year grant of 9,436,380 kroner for a research project that will examine the risks of heart and kidney disease among women who have had preeclampsia.

Economic stability

“We know that as a group, women who have had preeclampsia have increased risks of heart and kidney disease later in life. But we still cannot identify the specific women at greatest risk of these problems, because we still don’t understand exactly how preeclampsia changes a woman’s body and which of these changes are permanent.”

“These are some of the questions this new project will address. We would also like to develop a new system for classifying preeclampsia, because the current system jumbles a lot of different conditions together. Finally, we will look at whether being born to a mother with preeclampsia increases a child’s own risk of heart and kidney disease,” says Heather Boyd.

The SSI researcher is very pleased with the award from the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

“I am delighted. Both because of the professional recognition and also because of what this award means for the economic stability of the project over the next five years. Now we will have the time and breathing space to really dive into the data we have already collected,” says Heather Boyd.

Potential for important new discoveries

The Novo Nordisk Foundation is also pleased to be able to support researchers:

“By awarding these 5-year grants, we wish to provide researchers with longer-term economic stability for their projects. This makes it possible for them to investigate more risky, innovative ideas and find new ways to answer important research questions, which is frequently where the potential for important new discoveries lies,” writes Birgitte Nauntofte, Chairman of the Board of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, on the Foundation’s homepage.

Once the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s Research Leader Programme is fully implemented, it will support up to 240 research leaders at different stages of their careers with a total of 2.4 billion kroner.

Read more about the grant here.