Kenneth Thermann Kongstad

Short presentation

My research interests is within interdisciplinary projects involving analytical chemistry, spectroscopy, biochemistry, and pharmacology.

Current projects include:

Discovery of future drug leads from endophytic fungi

Quantitative analysis of opiods for pharmacokinetic studies

Chemical characterization of bioengineered organisms.

CV

Nov. 2015 – Present
Assistant Professor at Faculty of Health and Medicinal Sciences at University of Copenhagen

I have established an endophyte research lab aiming at discovering novel drug leads from the microorganisms which live intercellularly within plants - a largely unexplores area in natural prodcut reseach which hold great potential. I am furthermore involved in an interdepartmental collaboration with the Pharmacotherapy Research section where the bioanalysis conducted in my lab form the basis for pharmakokinetic modelling and the development of personlized medicine. Collaborators: Assoc. Prof.Trine M. Lund and Prof. Lona L. Christrup. I have maintained collaborations with research groups at Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences (KU), Department of Bioengineering and Biomedicine (DTU) and Drug Design and Pharmacology (KU)

Feb. 2015 - Aug. 2017
PostDoc at Faculty of Health and Medicinal Sciences at University of Copenhagen

Employed as part of the ambitious project to develop cell factories to produce carminic acid I collaborated closely with all involved research groups: Prof. Birger Møller, University of Copenhagen, Prof. Uffe Mortensen, DTU, and New Technologies Division, Chr.Hansen.

Two patents has been filed as part of this work.

Aug. 2012 – Jan. 2015
PostDoc at Faculty of Health and Medicinal Sciences at University of Copenhagen

Employed under the DSF-funded project ‘FungalFight’ - a collaboration between Prof. Michael Palmgren, Prof. Dan Stærk, both University of Copenhagen, Prof. Poul Nissen, Aarhus University, and Pcovery Aps. My role was to develop a screening methodology for semi-high-throughput screening of plant extracts and identification of individual metabolites responsible for anti-fungal activity.

Aug. 2009 – Aug. 2012
PhD fellow at Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at University of Copenhagen

Employed under the Drug Research Academy, supervised by Prof. Jerzy W. Jaroszewski (deceased) and Dr. Manfred Spraul (Bruker Biospin GmbH). With focus on analysis of complex mixtures of natural products, the research topics revolved around hyphenated NMR techniques (HPLC-PDA-HRMS-SPE-NMR), natural products, database assisted high-throughput structure elucidation, and spectral prediction. 

PhD dissertation title: ‘Advanced Hyphenated NMR Techniques for Natural Product Research and other Pharmaceutical Applications’

May 2008 – Aug. 2009 
Research Scientist at MycoTeQ A/S

MycoTeQ, a spin-off company from DTU, with focus on discovering novel antibiotics from filamentous fungi by bioassay-guided isolation. In a 4 man company, my responsibilities covered both fermentation, isolation, identification, equipment maintenance and purchase as well as scientific, strategic decisions.

Sept. 2002 – June 2008 
MSc. Eng., from Technical University of Denmark (DTU).

Supervised by Prof. Thomas Ostenfeld Larsen at DTU, my MSc. project was done at University of Queensland (UQ), Brisbane, Australia in the lab of Prof. Rob Capon. My primary research focus at DTU/UQ was on natural products from filamentous fungi, HRMS, HPLC and NMR.

MSc. Project title: ‘Secondary metabolites from Penicillium subgenus biverticillium’