Group Leader - Disease Biology

CPR has recently recruited one group leader to the Department of Disease Biology: Jakob Nilsson from the Biotech Research and Innovation Centre (BRIC), University of Copenhagen. Jakob Nilsson will head the Mitotic Mechanisms and Regulation research group starting 1 August 2011.

Jakob Nilsson got his PhD in 2002 followed by a postdoctoral position with Poul Nissen at the University of Aarhus. He did his second postdoctoral fellowship in Jonathan Pine's laboratory, Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge before joining BRIC as an independent group leader in March 2009.

Jakob Nilsson and his group will focus on understanding how cells achieve accurate chromosome segregation during mitosis, a process that is often defective in tumour cells. The cell employs a checkpoint referred to as the spindle assembly checkpoint to avoid errors in chromosome segregation and the aim is to obtain a molecular understanding of how this checkpoint works.