Research area
My primary research focuses on how non‑inherited foreign cells, known as microchimerism, shape health trajectories, with a particular emphasis on the risk of developing type 1 diabetes. I investigate the presence, origins, and consequences of maternal and male microchimerism using observational data from biological samples, surveys and interviews, and nationwide registers, applying a range of epidemiologic study designs.
Current research
Predictors of circulating maternal and male microchimerism
This project aims to identify predictors of the presence and concentration of maternal and male microchimerism in blood collected during youth.
Data: Lolland‑Falster Health Study.
Can microchimerism explain differences in parental type 1 diabetes conferred risk of offspring type 1 diabetes?
This project investigates whether microchimerism contributes to the differential risk of type 1 diabetes in children born to mothers with type 1 diabetes compared with those born to fathers with the disease.
Data: Danish National Birth Cohort; Multiplex Families cohorts.
PI: Flemming Pociot.
Maternal microchimerism and type 1 diabetes
The aim is to understand the relationship between maternal and male microchimerism and type 1 diabetes.
Data: Danish Registry of Childhood and Adolescent Diabetes; Lolland‑Falster Health Study.
PI: Flemming Pociot.
Maternal microchimerism and infections from childhood to young adulthood
This project assesses how maternal microchimerism at birth affects infection risk from early childhood through young adulthood.
Data: Mother‑Offspring Malaria Study (Muheza, Tanzania; collaboration with Dr. Whitney E. Harrington); Danish National Birth Cohort.
Maternal microchimerism and autoimmune diseases across the first 25 years of life
The aim is to determine how maternal microchimerism at birth shapes the risk of autoimmune diseases throughout childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.
Data: Danish National Birth Cohort.