Professor Morten Andersen’s research aims to unravel the glycobiology of the immune system and immune-related diseases including microbial infections, inflammation and cancer. He integrates glycoproteomics technologies into multi-omics workflows and employs methods in immunology, structural biology and molecular/cell biology to elucidate glycobiological processes of the immune system. While fundamental at its core, his research is increasingly pushing towards applications and translation by revealing new therapeutic targets and diagnostic markers as shown through growing collaborations with industry.
He obtained a PhD degree in protein chemistry in 2009 from the University of Southern Denmark under the guidance of Professor Peter Højrup. He thereafter relocated to Australia to complete two fellowships awarded by the Danish Research Agency and the Australian Research Council under the mentorship of Distinguished Professor Nicki Packer (2010–2014). Enabled by a Cancer Institute NSW ECR Fellowship (2014–2017), he then established the Analytical Glycoimmunology group at Macquarie University. He is currently an ARC Future Fellow (2022–2026) and was recently recruited as Visiting Professor (20% load, 2022–2027) to the Institute for Glyco-core Research at Nagoya University, Japan, to set up a clinical glycoproteomics lab as part of a large Japanese glycoscience program (2023–2033).
He is highly active in research as documented by his 120 peer-reviewed papers published in leading journals including Nature Methods, Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cell Reports, Cell, Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, Analytical Chemistry, Journal of Biological Chemistry and Glycobiology (H-index 50, 7,000 citations, Google Scholar). He has been invited to speak at 70 international conferences and has received 18 awards for scientific achievements including the 2013 Ken Mitchelhill Young Investigator Award (Australian Proteomics Society), the 2024 Career Development Award (Australian Proteomics Society) and the 2026 Shimadzu Mid-Career Award (Australian Glycoscience Society).
He has trained 18 HDR students (10 PhD and 8 Master of Research students) as a principal supervisor and mentored 13 postdocs and ECRs, many of which attracted their own competitive fellowships. Several have started independent academic careers.
Andersen has contributed to the scientific community as Chair of the Human Glycoproteomics Initiative (HGI) under HUPO since 2020 and through conference organisation such as AusOmics 2025 and World Congress HUPO 2019. He is currently serving on the ARC Medical Research Advisory Group and is an ARC College of Expert (2025–2027). He is also the Australian representative to the International Glycoconjugate Organization and Associate Editor of the Glycoconjugate Journal (Springer). He is also a lead co-founder of the Australian Glycoscience Society (AGS/Glyco@Oz) inaugurated in 2022 with approximately 130 members and is the inaugural President of the AGS (2022–2027).