Challenge accepted: New funding for ambitious projects within biomanufacturing, cardiometabolic diseases, and artificial intelligence

The 2025 Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge Programme awards DKK 479 million to nine innovative projects that advance health and sustainability through cooperation between researchers from all over the globe, including Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Australia, and the USA.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, June 27, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- How can we improve the biomanufacturing processes that transform greenhouse gases into useful products? What does it take to unravel the complex links between cardiometabolic diseases (CMDs), fat tissue and infections? And how can we use artificial intelligence to advance both human health and the green transition? These are just some of the questions that nine new projects funded through the 2025 Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge Programme will seek to answer. 

"Every year, the Novo Nordisk Foundation initiates the Challenge Programme to engage with the scientific community and encourage top-tier researchers to bring their most promising ideas to fruition with projects that are significant in both scale and vision and address societal challenges," says Lene Oddershede, Chief Scientific Officer for Planetary Science & Technology at the Novo Nordisk Foundation. 

Flemming Konradsen, Chief Scientific Officer for Health at the Novo Nordisk Foundation, adds: "We believe that the most effective way to address the immense challenges we face in areas such as human health and the green transition is through better research, brighter ideas and – not least – a far stronger scientific ecosystem for knowledge sharing and innovation. The Challenge Programme is one of our most important building blocks in achieving that mission." 

Four themes - nine projects

The nine projects funded through the 2025 Challenge Programme are wide-ranging in scope, innovative in their methods and span four strategically important themes selected by the Novo Nordisk Foundation last year: 1) Heterogeneity in Biomanufacturing, 2) Ectopic Fat - meaning unwanted fat tissue in places like the heart - and Cardiometabolic Disease, 3) Interactions of Infectious Disease and CMD, and finally 4) The Novo Nordisk Foundation Grand AI Challenge. 

Although the projects supported by the 2025 Challenge Programme are anchored at Danish institutions, they facilitate collaboration with researchers across the globe, including partners in Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Australia, and the United States.  

The nine selected projects, each funded by up to DKK 60 million, aim at achieving the following specific objectives:

• Creating more efficient gas fermentation processes for biomanufacturing, capable of converting greenhouse gases into valuable products such as proteins, alcohols, and acids. This will not only help reduce CO₂ emissions but also create new opportunities for industry.
• Understanding how unwanted fat tissue deposits contribute to atherosclerosis and other heart diseases, with the aim of improving prevention of cardiometabolic diseases.
• Exploring the well-established, yet still poorly understood, links between infectious diseases such as infections in the oral cavity and hepatitis B, and cardiometabolic diseases like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. This research will enhance diagnostics, prevention and treatment strategies.
• Harnessing the immense power of artificial intelligence to a) utilise large radiotherapy imaging datasets and self-supervised learning to develop advanced methodologies for personalised cancer treatment; b) optimise thin-film solar cell technology for the green transition through AI-driven material discovery; and c) develop early warning alerts for ice-free summers in the Arctic and predict their broader climate impact under various warming scenarios.

Projects funded by the 2025 Challenge Programme.

Theme 1: Heterogeneity in Biomanufacturing

• Alfred Spormann, Aarhus University: "Towards Implementing Resilience: Identification and Mitigation of Chemical, Physical, and Biological Heterogeneity in Microbial Gas Fermenting Bioreactors: RECIPE" (DKK 59,9 million over 6 years)
  
  
• Krist V. Gernaey, Technical University of Denmark: "Model-based Heterogeneity Assessment in Gas Fermentation: MORE-GAS" (DKK 59,8 million over 6 years)

Theme 2: Ectopic Fat and Cardiometabolic Disease

•  Jacob Fog Bentzon, Aarhus University: "The adipocyte-smooth muscle cell connection: a lipid-centric approach to understanding ectopic fat deposition in atherosclerotic arteries" (DKK 50 million over 6 years)
   
• Thomas Jespersen, University of Copenhagen: "Impact of Cardiac Adiposity on Structural and Electrical Diseases of the Heart" (DKK 56,4 million over 6 years)

Theme 3: Interactions of Infectious Disease and CMD

• Torben Hansen, University of Copenhagen: "Cardiometabolic diseases, Periodontitis and Dental Caries: Deciphering the role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic regulatory Mechanisms: CARPE DIEM" (DKK 60 million over 6 years)
  
  
• Nina Weis, Hvidovre Hospital: "The HEP-META study: hepatitis B virus and cardiometabolic disease - from biomarkers to clinical practice" (DKK 60 million over 6 years) 

Theme 4: The Novo Nordisk Foundation Grand AI Challenge

• Stine Sofia Korreman, Aarhus University: "AI-driven trustworthy foundation models for personalized and effective cancer radiotherapy" (DKK 53 million over 6 years)
  
  
• Mikkel Schmidt, Technical University of Denmark: "AI-driven materials optimization for light trapping in thin-film solar cells" (DKK 40 million over 6 years)
  
  
• Tian Tian, Danish Meteorological Institute: "IcyAlert - Intelligent Climate Early Warning Alert for Arctic Ice-Free Summers" (DKK 39 million over 6 years)  

About the Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge Programme
The Novo Nordisk Foundation Challenge Programme was established in 2014. The themes for next year's Challenge Programme were announced in April 2025. With the 2026 call, the Challenge Programme is now open to primary applicants from Europe-based research institutions, and the size of the grants has been significantly expanded.  

About the Novo Nordisk Foundation
Established in Denmark in 1924, the Novo Nordisk Foundation is an enterprise foundation with philanthropic objectives. The vision of the Foundation is to improve people's health and the sustainability of society and the planet. The Foundation's mission is to progress research and innovation in the prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic and infectious diseases as well as to advance knowledge and solutions to support a green transformation of society.