Iben is a non-obligate vegetarian (Christmas roast and paté excluded), from Svendborg, Denmark. She likes cats, studying brains and learning about medical research. Her favorite TV show is ‘The Bridge’. Likes asking Swedes whether the town Lund was founded by the Danes, pretending to not already know the answer. Her dream is to cure Alzheimer’s disease by targeting the glymphatic system. The name Iben is derived from the word ‘ibenholt’ which means ebony in Danish.
Early Career
Principal investigator Iben Lundgaard has, during her Master’s degree in Molecular Biology, obtained experience from aging lab, Suresh Rattan, Na/K ATPase in Nobel laureate Jens Christian Skou’s lab at University of Aarhus and apoptosis and calcium binding proteins in Martin Berchtold’s lab at University of Copenhagen. After a short internship in electrophysiology at University of Copenhagen, Iben started her PhD in the UK.
PhD
Iben Lundgaard did a PhD in neuroscience with Ragnhildur Thora Karadottir and Robin Franklin at University of Cambridge, UK, 2008-2012. The main findings of her PhD thesis were that growth factors neuregulin and BDNF interact with neuronal activity to control myelination and that remyelination after injury is dependent on glutamate receptors.
Postdoctoral training
Dr. Lundgaard worked with Maiken Nedergaard at University of Rochester where the glymphatic system was discovered. During her time in the Nedergaard lab Dr. Lundgaard gained detailed knowledge on the glymphatic system, see for example the study on delivery of glucose from the CSF to the brain parenchyma via the glymphatic system. After 2 years, Dr. Lundgaard was promoted to assistant professor and stayed for another two and a half years to continue glymphatic research in multiple disease models. A number of projects from the Rochester lab are still on-going and will be continued in the new lab at Lund University.
Wallenberg Centre for Molecular Medicine | LU Research Portal