Henrietta
Nielsen

Dr Henrietta Nielsen received her PhD in medicine from Lund University, department of clinical sciences, Sweden, in 2007. Her doctoral studies aimed to assess the involvement of serine protease inhibitors, specifically alpha-1-antichymotrypsin, in neurodegenerative dementia disorders. She then moved on for postdoctoral studies at the VU Medical Center in Amsterdam, departments of neuropathology and clinical chemistry, the Netherlands, where she investigated the ability of primary human glial cells (astrocytes and microglia) isolated from autopsy-derived brain tissues, to ingest the amyloid-beta peptide in the presence/absence of various amyloid-associated proteins like apolipoproteins E and J. Dr Nielsen further got additional training as a postdoctoral fellow and assistant researcher at Lund University, Sweden, where she spear-headed fluid biomarker discovery efforts including cerebrospinal fluid and blood samples from patients with mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Later, after working nearly four years at the Mayo Clinic, department of neuroscience, in Florida, USA, Dr Nielsen accepted a position as an assistant professor and principal investigator in neurochemistry at Stockholm University, Sweden. At Stockholm University she was recently given tenure as an associate professor in neurochemistry and she now splits her time between tenured positions at Stockholm University and Roskilde University, Denmark. Dr Nielsen’s laboratory the ‘Translational Neurodegeneration Group’ has a major focus on investigating biological mechanisms promoting/leading to neurodegenerative dementia. As the strongest genetic risk factor for not only Alzheimer’s disease but also dementia with Lewy bodies the Nielsen laboratory devotes a lot of time to better understand the biological processes linking APOE4 to the increased risk of neurodegenerative diseases. With nearly 12 years of research experience and extensive expertise in the field of neurodegenerative diseases Dr Nielsen serves as a senior editor for Molecular Neurodegeneration, an associate editor for the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and an academic editor for Plos One.