Speaker: Torben Hansen, Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, Copenhagen, Denmark

Title: "Insights into cardio-metabolic health and disease - lessons from Greenland"

Host: Hindrik Mulder

Torben Hansen is an MD, PhD, holding a professorship at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research in Copenhagen, Denmark. Torben has published more than 450 articles, mainly in the field of population genetics, using GWAS in the recent years as a tool to understand the genetic and environmental underpinnings of major metabolic disorders. What really sets Torben apart from most leaders in the field is his ambition to bring genetic findings to the actual pathophysiology of disease. To that end, he has examined the inuit population on Greenland. Here, he identified two genetic loci that underlie substantial parts of dysmetabolism, leading to insulin resistance, hyperglycemia and ultimately type 2 diabetes in this already vulnerable population: variants of TBC1D4 and ADCY3. These genes encode molecules essential for insulin signaling in target tissues.