2010.04.01 |
The Villum Foundation has awarded DKK 25 million (approximately EUR 3.3 million) to a new VKR (Villum Kann Rasmussen) Centre of Excellence established in collaboration between four research groups at Aarhus University, Aalborg University and the University of Copenhagen under the direction of Professor Eva B. Vedel Jensen. The centre will study and analyse biological tissue with the aid of laser scanning and cryo-electron microscopy, which places completely new demands on the development of computer-based mathematical and statistical analysis methods.
Mathematics and statistics play a prominent role in the biosciences. The analysis of cell populations at the light microscopic level rests on a solid mathematical and statistical foundation developed within the last 25 years. As opposed to this, the new advanced microscopy techniques that provide access to the molecular level – including laser scanning and cryo-electron microscopy – make completely new demands to the development of computer-based mathematical and statistical analysis methods.
The new VKR Centre of Excellence will take up this challenge and develop new methods based on disciplines such as stochastic geometry, a subject on the interface between mathematics and statistics that is expected to play a crucial role in developing future methods of analysing advanced microscopic data.
In the long term, the centre will be able to provide the health sector and the biomedical industry with new knowledge. Work at the centre will be interdisciplinary, cutting across mathematics and the biosciences. It will also take place in a combined Danish and international research environment.
