Aims and objectives

The Finsen Laboratory is a basic cancer research department located in the Copenhagen Biocenter.  Our research is focused at identification and implementation of new cancer biomarkers, identification and characterization of novel targets for future cancer treatment and identification of molecular mechanisms underlying the behaviour of cancer stem cells as well as their normal counterparts.

We educate Master and Ph.D. students within molecular biology, bioinformatics and biochemistry in collaboration with The University of Copenhagen.

Focus areas

The distinct groups of the laboratory study different molecular aspects of cancer biology.

We focus at:

• Cellular invasion and matrix degradation,
• Collagen turnover in pathological and physiological conditions
• Structural and functional aspects of proteins involved in cellular invasion and matrix degradation
• The functional consequences of large scale somatic genomic alterations in cancer
• Cancer stem cell biology using acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) as model disease
• Improvement of prognostication and identification of novel drug targets for patients with AML

Disciplines, methods and tools

Our research takes advantage of our in house facilities and expertise which revolves around: protein chemistry, bioinformatics, histology, flow cytometry and a variety of omics technologies such as proteomics and genomics.

Much of our work is done in mammal cells, using mice as model organisms or analyzing patient material.

Our clinical collaborations are of significant importance to our work as well as our close collaboration with researchers at BRIC (Biotech Research & Innovation Centre) at the University of Copenhagen.

Useful links