SIC welcomes Professor Jonathan Coquet as new Executive Director

Jonathan Coquet leads the Allergic Inflammation group at SIC. His research focuses on T cells and the development of allergic diseases such as asthma and eczema, with the aim of uncovering the fundamental mechanisms driving these conditions.

"My personal passion has always been to better understand human physiology at a fundamental level and for this reason, I am very excited to have the opportunity to lead the LEO Foundation Skin Immunology Research Center," says SIC’s new Executive Director, Professor Jonathan Coquet.

SIC has grown a lot since Jonathan Coquet's arrival in 2022. The center has now seven research groups with over 100 staff currently employed or affiliated with SIC.

"One of the reasons I enjoy coming to work is because of the broad expertise we have at SIC. Our research groups study both the innate and adaptive arms of the immune system, cellular and molecular processes associated with health and disease," says Jonathan and continues:

"At the same time, we have in-house computational expertise to distill complex datasets into clear pictures of the immune response. This makes for lively discussions at internal meetings and means that we tackle skin diseases from multiple angles."

SIC has the power to stay at the forefront of the field

When asked how SIC plans to stay at the forefront of the research field, Jonathan is enthused, underlining that in the last few years, strategic investments in technologies including single-cell and spatial RNA-Sequencing, 3-D skin models and multi-photon imaging, have given SIC the power to peer into the skin and other barrier tissues with unprecedented precision, that will help pushing the boundaries of knowledge.

"An important part of any high performing research environment is a strong collaborative network. Here, we are fortunate to have several clinical and basic research partners within Denmark, most notably with our colleagues at BIOSKIN in Gentofte, but also across Europe, North America and into Africa. These partnerships help SIC researchers to tackle new research questions in a meaningful way," says Jonathan Coquet.

To me, one of the most exciting aspects of SIC is the emergence of a new generation of skin immunologists and research leaders.

In recent years, Assistant Professors Terkild Buus Brink and Wenning Zheng, both awarded LEO Foundation Dr Abildgaard fellowships, have kicked off their research teams at SIC. The postdoc-driven seminar series with internationally renowned speakers and the ‘jewel in the crown’ - the annual SIC Summer School - which brings together students and postdocs from around the world, also make a vibrant Center with international appeal.

"This all to say that SIC is poised to make important contributions to our fundamental understanding of skin immunity, and I am more than eager to see how we can move the needle in the coming years," concludes the new Executive Director, Professor Jonathan Coquet.