Each year the Francqui Foundation attributes Francqui Chairs to Belgian universities. In that way national or international Professors can be invited as guest lecturers.

This academic year, the Department of Veterinary Sciences of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical, Biomedical and Veterianary Sciences honored Prof. Per Sangild of the University of Copenhagen with the Belgian Collen-Francqui Chair 2021-2022. Promotor is Prof. Chris Van Ginneken.

The Faculty organises the inaugural lecture on 26 April 2022, followed by a series of lectures.

Professor Per Sangild

Professor Per Sangild (°1961) is affiliated with the University of Copenhagen, the Rigshospitalet, the University of Odense, Denmark, and Sun Yat-sen University Hospital of China. He heads the Comparative Pediatrics & Nutrition Group, which is part of the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. His research focuses on gastroenterology, endocrinology, immunology, and nutrition in infants with, among others, the use of animal – especially the piglet - models. His research group consists of an international team of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers and master’s students.

After his graduation as Master of Agricultural Sciences (1986), Prof. Sangild obtained a Ph.D. in Physiology (1990), Doctor of Veterinary Science (1996), and Doctor of Medical Science (2009), all from the University of Copenhagen. After his undergraduate studies and Ph.D. training at the University of Copenhagen, Prof. Sangild continued his research activities as a research fellow, conducting a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge. He was subsequently appointed as Associate Professor in 1996 at the University of Copenhagen and became a Full Professor in pediatrics, human nutrition, animal production, clinical animal nutrition and veterinary physiology in 2005. He mentors and trains graduate and post-graduate students in Denmark and China on the topics of nutrition, reproduction, development, and physiology. In addition, he also organizes an international Ph.D. course in science philosophy.

Prof. Sangild has led more than 50 separate research projects. For many of these, he has been the driving force to bring together experts (academic, local, companies) from all over the world to focus on a central scientific question. This has led to scientific breakthroughs regarding the role of bovine colostrum, GLP-2, and glucocorticoid hormone administration  for (impaired) gut maturation in the infant. Prof. Sangild has been the project supervisor of more than 30 Ph.D. students and has (co-)authored more than 250 international peer-review publications and 46 book chapters. He has given more than 50 invited lectures at international conferences in the past ten years. Recently (March 2022), Prof. Sangild received ‘the Dannebrogsorden’ from the Queen of Denmark for his overall research contributions to society.