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New professor will strengthen molecular microbial ecology

Associate Professor Lars Hestbjerg Hansen has been appointed Professor of Molecular Microbiology at Aarhus University’s Department of Environmental Science in Roskilde. The professorship was established to strengthen molecular biology research into the outer environment based on DNA analysis. It will also form the basis for establishing a new strategic and visionary field of research linking molecular microbial ecology with infectious diseases and health.

Professor Lars Hestbjerg Hansen, Aarhus University. Photo: Britta Munter, Aarhus University

Professor Hansen uses molecular techniques in his research to study complex questions regarding microbial ecology. In recent years, he has contributed significantly to building up a comprehensive DNA sequencing centre at the University of Copenhagen. He uses bacterial cells as biosensors to study how bacteria react to different compounds in the environment, and DNA sequencing to study the evolution and plasmid transfer of antibiotic resistance. He has used fluorescence-activated sorting of cells in his work – as well as advanced DNA and RNA sequencing technology – to study the evolution and diversity of bacteria, viruses and plasmids in research concerning human health.

Professor Hansen has worked in different countries, including the USA and Australia, and he has built up an extensive international network.

Most recently, Professor Hansen collaborated with a number of research colleagues to map a weird and previously unknown world of hundreds of small, self-proliferating DNA elements in bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract of rats. This project was funded by the Lundbeck Foundation, and the work has just been accepted for publication in the renowned international journal PLOS One.

Lars Hansen was born in 1965 and completed his MSc in Biochemistry in 1996 at the University of Copenhagen, where he also graduated with a PhD in Molecular Microbiology in 2000. He was appointed assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen in 2000, where he has been associate professor since 2006. The new professor has published more than seventy articles in international journals, and he is an experienced lecturer.

Professor Hansen lives in the residential area of Østerbro in Copenhagen with his two children – Christian and Ane – close to his partner Rikke Bering.

More information

  • Professor Lars Hestbjerg Hansen, Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University, +45 2875 2053, lhha@dmu.dk
  • Read more about Lars H. Hansen (Google Scholar)