Submitted by D.P. Juan on Wed, 19/11/2025 - 14:17
On Friday, 16th January, we were proud to host Professor Lotte Bjerre Knudsen at our annual David James lecture. Hosted at the Department of Biochemistry’s Jean Thomas Lecture theatre, Prof. Knudsen’s talk drew a crowd of 145 attendees: the most well-attended lecture in the series!
Our David James Lecture series is open to all, and we warmly welcome alumni to attend.
As our flagship talk series, we aim to host pharmacological superstars at the Department. Prof. Knudsen certainly fits well with this description, being the Head of IDEA and Chief Scientific Advisor to the CSO at Novo Nordisk, alongside being an inventor on numerous patents, and is most prominently a recipient of the Paul Langerhans Award, the Science Mani Bhaumik Breakthrough of the Year Award, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Research Award and the Breakthrough Prize of Life Sciences; which was awarded for her role in developing GLP1 drugs.
To maximise the Department's benefits from hosting superstar individuals, we organised a multi-day itinerary for Prof. Knudsen. This involved multiple one-to-one meetings with group leaders, a dinner at St John’s College, and opportunities for Department members to meet and network with Prof. Knudsen.
You can see a list of previous David James Lecture speakers here: https://www.phar.cam.ac.uk/david-james-annual-seminar-series.
We are pleased to announce the Department of Pharmacology’s next flagship Annual David James Lecture speaker: Professor Lotte Bjerre Knudsen.
Department of Pharmacology: David James Lecture 2026
Speaker: Professor Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, Head of IDEA and Chief Scientific Advisor at Novo Nordisk
Title: GLP-1: the medicines, the biology, and the learnings
Date and Time: Friday 16 January, 13:00. Reception to follow at 14:00
Location: Department of Biochemistry, Jean Thomas Lecture Theatre
In person only. Registration required. To register, please send us a direct message on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cambridge-pharmacology
Biography: Lotte Bjerre Knudsen is a Danish national, born in 1964 in a small town near Copenhagen. Lotte holds a degree in biotechnology from the Technical University of Denmark, and a Doctoral Degree in Scientific Medicine from the University of Copenhagen, and she is an Adjunct Professor of Translational Medicine for Aahus University. Lotte has an H-index of 63, is an inventor on numerous patents, and is most prominently a recipient of the Paul Langerhans Award, the Science Mani Bhaumik Breakthrough of the Year Award, the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Research Award and the Breakthrough Prize of Life Sciences.
Lotte Bjerre Knudsen is the Chief Scientific Advisor for R&D at Novo Nordisk. She heads up the team IDEA (Innovation & Data Experimentation Advancement) that focuses entirely on human data driven insights to inform drug discovery. Lotte has held her current role since 2022, after spending 2021 in Oxford. She is a long-time employee of Novo Nordisk, since 1989. Lotte is a co-inventor of liraglutide and has led all biology research programs for liraglutide and semaglutide from diabetes to obesity, cardiovascular, liver, kidney and Alzheimer’s Disease. She has been part of representing Novo Nordisk in five FDA Advisory committees
Lotte has received numerous awards. Most recently, she was a recipient of the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Paul Langerhans Award from the German Diabetes Association, the STAT Biomedical Innovation Award, and a co-recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Mani Bhaumik Breakthrough of the Year Award.
The David James Lectures are the Department of Pharmacology’s flagship lecture series. Named after Dr David James, a former Departmental Administrator who left behind a legacy to the Department to provide scholarships to gifted postgraduates, this series aims to draw superstar research speakers to Cambridge, promoting collaboration and sparking inspiration. A list of previous speakers can be found here: https://www.phar.cam.ac.uk/david-james-annual-seminar-series.