Jens Pahnke is Professor at the University of Oslo (UiO) and the Head of the Section of Neuropathology at the Oslo University Hospital (OUS).

He is also group leader at the LIED / University of Lübeck and the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Latvia in Riga.

During his education in 'Medicine' and 'Humanbiology' at the University of Greifswald (1994-2000), he already started his studies of the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (MD thesis, 2000). Since then he has been focussing on transport mechanisms at the blood-brain barrier and its regulation in the setting of different neurodegenerative diseases. His Ph.D. thesis (University of Rostock) was published in 2004 and investigated mechanisms for disease detection.

He performed his research at different places: Rostock 2001-2002, Zürich 2002-2005, Rostock 2005-2011, and Magdeburg 2011-2014. Since 2014 he is full Professor I at the UiO and published many important papers about ABC transporters and new treatment and diagnostic options for Alzheimer's disease and other proteopathies of the brain (www.pahnkelab.eu).

The work also investigated childhood and adult dementia (NCL, AD) and movement disorders (PD, HD,SCA) with special emphasis on the function of ABC transporters at the blood-brain barrier and brain cells  for peptide/metabolite export, e.g. the regulation by aging and mitochondrial function, stem cell and vascular function (endothelia/pericytes), establishment of in-vitro and in-vivo diagnostical assays (cell culture and PET), aggregates of Abeta, genetics in patient cohorts, the link between dementia and depression in elderly, drug development (medicinal plants and chemical drugs) and drug testing in patients. 

His lab is maintaining and establishing new mouse models and uses histology, mass spectrometry imaging (MSI), PET, MRI and MRS for characterisation of the models and translational research projects.

The availability of special humanised ABC transporter models (hABCA7, hABCB1, hABCC1) helps to translate mouse research directly into patients.

Recently, his team developed a new model for sporadic Alzheimer's disease without hAPP-transgene expression that mimics early disease phases (Krohn et al. 2015, Brain).

Diagnostic and clinical work:

Jens Pahnke has been working in Neurology and Neuropathology since 2001. He became a Specialist in Neuropathology in 2008. As Professor at the University in Rostock 2005-2012 he was responsible for the DGM Muscle Centre in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. He now runs the neuropathology diagnostics section for South-East Norway and the Neuropathology Reference Center in Norway.