Karen Louise Thomsen (MD, PhD) has a strong basic research background in experimental and translational hepatology, as well as being a fully trained consultant Hepatologist and Clinical Professor in the Department of Hepatology and Gastroenterology, Aarhus University Hospital.
Her principal early research contributions were within the area of metabolic liver function in inflammatory states. She pursued studies at the bench and in animal disease models, and translated her findings to clinical studies in the setting of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD).
Her experimental research skills were honed by a significant time spent in the lab of Professor Jacob George in Sydney, Australia. She further enriched her clinical translational skills with a year in London at The Royal Free Liver Transplant Unit as a Senior Research Fellow, allied to the UCL Institute for Liver and Digestive Health. This rounded her research and clinical specialist training, and generated interests in the study of cirrhosis decompensation.
Her ongoing clinical studies investigate metabolic liver and brain dysfunction in MASLD patients through in vivo functional tests as well as MRI and PET imaging. Also, she is the PI of a large, multicentre, randomised, placebo-controlled study investigating the effect of faecal microbiota transplantation for prevention of complications, progression and mortality in patients with decompensated liver cirrhosis.
Karen Louise Thomsen has supervised numerous PhD students, as well as overseeing pre-graduate scholar students.