Prof. Birgitte Rahbek Kornum

Birgitte Rahbek Kornum is a professor at the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark. The current focus of her research is to understand how the immune system affects the sleep-regulating networks of the brain. She is particularly interested in the hypocretin/orexin system, its involvement in sleep-wake neurophysiology and how it is affected by immune stimuli. In the neurologic sleep disorder narcolepsy, the hypocretin-producing neurons in the hypothalamus are lost, due to what is hypothesized to be an autoimmune attack on the neurons. The Kornum Lab has studied the details of the possible neuron-immune system interaction using patient samples, primary neuronal cultures, and animal models. The current research is focused on elucidating the role of the hypocretin neurons in the sickness response, and for this, the lab uses animal models, in vivo electrophysiology, molecular biology tools and single-cell RNA sequencing.

Birgitte R. Kornum did her post-doctoral training at Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences in the lab of Dr. Emmanuel Mignot. During this time she was awarded the 2011 Young Scientist Award from the American Association of Sleep Medicine for her discovery of the association of P2RY11 with narcolepsy. In 2015 she was elected member of the Young Academy of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.