Professor Anders Børglum

Anders Børglums research group is located at Department of Biomedicine, AU.

The research concerns identification and functional characterization of genes involved in complex disorders with a main focus on psychiatric disorders.

Large sample sets including thousands of individuals from national biobanks, multiplex families, trios, twins and isolated populations are studied, using cutting edge approaches such as GWAS, whole genome and exome sequencing. Epigenetic mechanisms and gene-environment interplays are also important aspects of the studies performed.

The massive data generated in these studies are analysed by agnostic as well as hypothesis driven approaches trying to integrate the different layers of information, using a range of bioinformatic, genetic epidemiologic and statistical genetic methodologies, some of which are developed by the group.

The biological function and pathogenic mechanisms of identified disease associated genes are investigated at the molecular level, in cell models and in genetically modified animal models.

The overall aim is to increase the aetiological and pathophysiological understanding in order to provide a basis for better diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the disabling and severe disorders investigated.

The Børglum Lab comprises an international and interdisciplinary team of molecular biologists, medical geneticists, psychiatrists, statisticians and bioinformaticians (currently 25 members, including 7 Associate Professors, 3 Postdocs and 9 PhD fellows).

The group has a main responsibility for running the Aarhus University Platform for Genomics and Bioinformatics dedicated to analysing large-scale genomics/sequencing data, using supercomputing facilities and related bioinformatics. The lab also runs a Sequenom MassArray platform as a Faculty core facility for high-throughput analysis of SNPs, CNVs, DNA methylation and other DNA/RNA fragment analyses.

"The Børglum Lab is working closely together with the neighbouring labs of Professor Anders L. Nielsen (regarding epigenetics in neuroscience) and Associate Professor Thomas Corydon (regarding functional genomics) and Associate Professor Mette Nyegaard (regarding follow up on rare variants). 

The Børglum group also works very closely together with the psychiatric genetics group headed by Professor Ole Mors at Aarhus University Hospital, Risskov, to which Anders Børglum is also affiliated, and a number of team members work both places. Moreover, the group has longstanding and widespread international collaborations.