Evening Consultation: From Ant to Whale - On Antibiotic Resistance and the Body's Healing Processes

Evening Consultation: From Ant to Whale: Thursday 19 November 2026, 19:00–21:00, Medicinsk Museion, Copenhagen. Tickets cost 95–145 kr.

This evening consultation explores how animals - from the smallest to the largest - help researchers develop new medicines and better understand the human body. Can ants hold the key to new antibiotics, and what can marine mammals teach us about the body's healing processes? To understand humans, we must first learn more about animals.

Henrik Lauridsen researches regenerative medicine and biology. Rather than studying humans alone, he places large marine mammals in CT, MR, and PET scanners. By examining scan images of animals with special regenerative abilities, he investigates how the body can best heal damage from accidents or disease - for example, spinal injuries or heart damage.

Ida Cecilie Jensen is a biologist with a PhD in ants, and she won the Research Festival earlier this year for her research on ant footprints. Her work shows how ants and their foot bacteria can combat plant diseases in agriculture and may inspire new antibiotics - solutions shaped through more than 168 million years of evolution. As she puts it: "A small footprint from ants becomes a quantum leap for us humans."

Speakers: Ida Cecilie Jensen, biologist and PhD from Aarhus University, and Henrik Lauridsen, lecturer at the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University.

Tickets: Students 95 kr., standard 145 kr. A Hypochondriac ticket gives access to all three evening consultations for 395 kr. and can be purchased by clicking here. The price includes a glass of sparkling wine after the lecture, and the museum's exhibitions are open until 21:00.

Evening Consultations at the Medical Museum (autumn 2026): This season explores what animals can teach humans about the body, health, and medicine - from ants' role in fighting antibiotic resistance to CT scans of whales. The lecture series takes place in an auditorium from 1787, originally built as the Royal Surgical Academy.