Olli Kallioniemi has been the founding Director of FIMM from December 2007 and has overseen the rapid growth of the Institute to a nationally and internationally leading and well-known organization, and the Finnish part of the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine. Today FIMM has 200 people and a 16 M€ annual budget.
Photo: Veikko Somerpuro
Olli Kallioniemi will step down as the Director of FIMM when his new position in Stockholm begins. However, he will continue as a part-time Research Director at FIMM. All ongoing research activities at FIMM will continue and FIMM and SciLifeLab are expected to start a close collaboration in infrastructure services as well as in joint research programmes to enable new possibilities for both of the institutes, the participating Universities and the two countries.
“While it is a loss to have Olli Kallioniemi step down as the Director, we are delighted that he will continue his research activities at FIMM and at the University of Helsinki. We are excited about the opportunity to form closer research collaborations with the Stockholm region and the SciLifeLab organization especially in light of our own “Helsinki Life Science Center initiative”, Professor Keijo Hämäläinen, Vice-Rector of research of the University of Helsinki commented.
“University of Helsinki is committed to continue the further development of FIMM within the University organization. We expect to nominate an interim Director for FIMM in June 2015 so that the transition will happen in a smooth manner with minimal disturbance to FIMM activities”, he continued.