Opening of a new Center of Excellence: Will make us smarter about future pandemics

There were speeches, jazz music and high spirits when Roskilde University's new Center of Excellence PandemiX opened last Friday. Professor Lone Simonsen will head the new center, which the Danish National Research Foundation has invested DKK 47 million in.

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PandemiX Center (Research Centre)

On June 23rd Roskilde University's new Center of Excellence PandemiX was officially opened. Photo: Agnete Schlichtkrull

By: PandemiX

"We will work hard to be ready for pandemics in the future," said Professor Lone Simonsen as she stood in front of the more than one hundred attendees at the opening.

By learning from the past, we must better equip ourselves for the pandemics of the future. And that is precisely what will be the focal point of the new Center of Excellence.

What is special about the new center is that it is interdisciplinary and that it will include mathematicians, physicists, bioinformaticians, clinicians, epidemiologists and historians who will work together to map the characteristics of pandemics and epidemics over the past 300-400 years.

One of the other speakers at the opening was Søren-Peter Olesen (pictured above), director of the Danish National Research Foundation, who has high expectations for the new center. Among other things, he said:

"The Danish National Research Foundation and PandemiX are a match made in heaven."

Henrik Ullum, CEO of Statens Serum Institut, emphasized in his speech how crucial a role researchers play when a pandemic strikes.

"The researchers in PandemiX contributed with very important calculations in relation to Denmark's COVID-19 response. Close collaboration between authorities and external research centers is central to our Danish infection preparedness," he said.

The center's partners include the University of Copenhagen, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), North Zealand Hospital and Statens Serum Institut (SSI).