PhD students participating in August Krogh seminars receive 0,2 ECTS per seminar
AKC Double Seminar: From Gene Function to Molecular Landscapes: Fatty Acid Metabolism in Health and Malignancy
August Krogh Double Seminar
Professor Nils J. Færgeman and Postdoc Andreas A. Sparre
M3: Molecular Metabolism and Metabolomics, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
Abstract
Fatty acids lie at the intersection of energy metabolism, membrane architecture, and cellular signaling. Their activation to fatty acyl-CoA esters creates a metabolic hub from which lipids are distributed between competing anabolic and catabolic pathways.
Yet the importance of the proteins governing this process is not universal, it emerges from the metabolic and physiological context in which they operate. In this seminar, we will use acyl-CoA binding protein (ACBP/DBI) as an entry point to explore this context dependence.
Despite its conserved role in intracellular acyl-CoA handling, loss of ACBP produces strikingly different consequences across biological systems. In adipose tissue, ACBP is largely dispensable for metabolic homeostasis and thermogenic function. In the epidermis, its absence disrupts the production of specialized very-long-chain ceramides required for barrier integrity and elicits broader adaptations in cutaneous lipid metabolism.
In non-small cell lung cancer, by contrast, ACBP becomes a metabolic dependency as its loss restricts fatty acid oxidation and mitochondrial flexibility, impairs malignant growth, and remodels membrane lipids toward increased susceptibility to oxidative damage. Together, these contrasting phenotypes illustrate how the biological importance of a metabolic regulator is shaped by the demands and compensatory capacity of the cellular context.
Finally, we will move from gene function to molecular landscapes, illustrating how imaging mass spectrometry can resolve lipid metabolism in space and uncover molecular changes that may be obscured in bulk tissue analyses. By integrating genetic models, metabolic phenotyping, lipidomics, and spatially resolved mass spectrometry, the seminar will highlight how the function of a metabolic regulator can only be fully understood when considered within the cellular and tissue landscape in which it operates.
Researcher profiles
Nils J. Færgeman
Nils J. Færgeman is professor and director of the molecular metabolism and metabolomics unit at The Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at University of Southern Denmark. He received his PhD degree from University of Southern Denmark in 1997 and undertook post-doctoral research at Albany Medical College (NY, USA) from 1998 to 2000. He has been independent principal investigator since 2003. His research interests revolve around how metazoans sense alterations in the environment and in their genome and how they adapt metabolism to maintain cellular homeostasis, promote survival and achieve balanced growth. His group takes a systems biology-wide approach and combines genomics, proteomics and metabolomics to untangle novel mechanisms regulating metabolism.
Andreas A. Sparre
Andreas A. Sparre graduated as PhD in 2025 from The Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at University of Southern Denmark specialized in applying and development of mass spectrometry-based imaging to monitor spatial changes in proteomes of healthy and malignant tissues. During his post-doctoral training he focuses on profiling metabolic and lipidomic changes in cells and tissues in various experimental models.
Time
27 November 2026
14:00-15:30 CET (snacks and drinks will be served after the seminar)
Venue
Auditorium 1, August Krogh Building, Universitetsparken 13, DK-2100 Copenhagen
Registration
Participation is free, but please register here.
For PhD students
PhD students participating in August Krogh seminars receive 0,2 ECTS per seminar
Contact
Anders Gudiksen, anders.gudiksen@bio.ku.dk
