Congratulations to Karina Barreiro for her recent first author publication in Genes, in which she integrated results from the publications included in her doctoral thesis (Barreiro et al. 2020, J Extracell Vesicles), (Barreiro et al. 2021, J Extracell Vesicles) and (Dwivedi et al. 2023, iScience).
Barreiro K, Dwivedi OP, Rannikko A, et al. Capturing the Kidney Transcriptome by Urinary Extracellular Vesicles-From Pre-Analytical Obstacles to Biomarker Research. Genes (Basel). 2023 Jul 8;14(7):1415.
Karina is a postdoctoral researcher and a technical specialist in FIMM HiPREP core, supervised by Dr. Maija Puhka and collaborating with Prof. Per-Henrik Groop and Associate Prof. Tiinamaija Tuomi. Her postdoctoral research focus on urinary extracellular vesicles as kidney liquid biopsies for early diagnosis and prognosis of diabetic kidney disease. This project is a continuation of her doctoral research, and it seeks to validate the group previous findings on candidate markers for diabetic kidney disease and assess whether additional markers could be identified including female and type 2 diabetes cohorts. Moreover, this project seeks to understand how the urinary extracellular vesicles candidate markers reflect kidney damage by studying kidney tissue biopsies. For FIMM HiPREP core, Karina performs RNA isolations and quality control together with the dynamic HiPREP team serving e.g. the largest precision medicine projects in the University of Helsinki. In her free time, Karina enjoys spending time with her family, doing some art, and watching documentaries.
Congratulations to Jaakko Leinonen for being awarded for the poster presentation at the 12th Annual Meeting of the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine.
Jaakko is a post-doctoral researcher in the Genomics of Sex Differences group (Tukiainen). During his time at FIMM, he has had a chance to learn and apply a wide range of genetic methods to study, for example, the genetics of puberty, cardiac arrhythmias, and sex hormones. Many of his current projects focus on understanding how different maternal features and events during pregnancy relate to children's later-life health, utilizing the rich FinnGen dataset. Outside FIMM, Jaakko enjoys time with his family, competes in different endurance sports, and coaches young athletes.
Congratulations to Prima Sanjaya for his recent first author publication in Genome Medicine!
Sanjaya P, Maljanen K, Katainen R, et al. Mutation-Attention (MuAt): deep representation learning of somatic mutations for tumour typing and subtyping. Genome Med. 2023 Jul 7; 15:47.
Prima is a doctoral researcher in the Machine Learning in Biomedicine research group, led by Esa Pitkänen, at FIMM. His doctoral research focuses on developing interpretable deep learning models in genomics for cancer diagnosis, subtyping, and prognosis. In his current project, he analyzes over 15,000 cancer genome sequencing (whole genomes and exomes) data in collaboration with the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG), Genomic England Consortium, and iCAN Flagship Project (the Finnish Pan-cancer Biobank) to enable the classification of tumors and tumor subtypes for clinical use. In his spare time, Prima enjoys playing music, video games, and sports such as tennis and badminton.
Congratulations to Max Tamlander for being awarded the Mia Neri Early Career Award for the best presentation in cancer research at the European Society of Human Genetics Conference 2023!
Max became interested in the genetic contributions to disease during medical school at the University of Helsinki. In particular, research questions on how the growing number of fascinating and complex genetic discoveries would be translated into viable precision medicine approaches led Max to pursue a PhD in statistical genetics at group Ripatti. His research on polygenic risk scores for colorectal cancer, currently one of the most common cancers, furthers the understanding of how common inherited factors contribute to susceptibility for the disease throughout the life course. Besides his research, he enjoys a variety of sports, outdoor activities and the company of friends and family.
Congratulations to Veera Timonen (left) and Anni Varjonen (right) for their recent and first 1st author publications in Cytometry Part A and Cerebral Cortex!
Timonen VA, Kerkelä E, Impola U, et al. DeepIFC: virtual fluorescent labeling of blood cells in imaging flow cytometry data with deep learning. Cytometry A. 2023
Varjonen A, Claudia Schwarz C, and Vuoksimaa E. Co-twin design in brain imaging-review on biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease. Cereb Cortex. 2023
Veera is a doctoral researcher in Esa Pitkänen's group Machine Learning in Biomedicine (https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/machine-learning-in-biomedicine). Her doctoral thesis revolves around creating deep learning methods for hematological imaging data, including predicting cell images and inferring cell types in imaging flow cytometry data in collaboration with the Finnish Red Cross Blood Service (FRCBS). In her current project she is working with confocal microscopy images and multiomics data from FRCBS and FinnGen in order to examine genotype-phenotype connections in diseases enriched in the Finnish population. In her spare time Veera likes berry & mushroom picking, playing video games and bouldering.
Anni is a PhD student at Eero Vuoksimaa’s Cognitive and Brain Aging group at FIMM. Her dissertation project focuses on the genetic and environmental influences on dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and cognitive aging, utilizing data from the Finnish Twin Cohort. With the help of case-control co-twin design, her research aims to clarify the associations of dementia risk and protective factors on old age cognition and cortical structures. Anni is also part of the PhD and PostDoc council at FIMM. In her free time Anni plays soccer at HPS and enjoys many other sports on the side. She also enjoys creative activities such as drawing and painting, and of course spending time with her friends.
Congratulations to Tommi Strausz for his recent publication in Sleep!
Tommi Strausz, Satu Strausz, FinnGen, et al. Genetic analysis of probable sleep bruxism and its associations with clinical and behavioral traits. Sleep. 2023
Tommi is a dentist clinician and a doctoral researcher in Hanna Ollila’s group. Tommi's doctoral research focuses on the genetic determinants of sleep bruxism. The main aim of his PhD research is to look at sleep bruxism, a common but complex disorder with many associations, through genetic methods. In his analyses, he has utilised questionnaire, medical record and genetic data in several longitudinal population cohorts, including FinnGen and the UK Biobank, to scrutinise factors associated with sleep bruxism. He is working on applying advanced epidemiological methods such as Mendelian randomization, to untangle the complex web of cause and effect regarding this disorder and related illnesses and comorbidities. During his PhD project Tommi’s interest in (dental) sleep medicine has increased, and he is hoping to expand and implement that knowledge in his clinical work. Tommi enjoys personal development and his family.
Congratulations to Tuomo Hartonen for his recent publication in Nature Human Behaviour!
Hartonen T, Jermy B, Sõnajalg H, et al. Nationwide health, socio-economic and genetic predictors of COVID-19 vaccination status in Finland. Nat. Hum. Behav. 2023
Tuomo is a post-doctoral researcher at the Data Science and Genetic Epidemiology lab (https://www.dsgelab.org/) at FIMM led by associate professor Andrea Ganna and in the INTERVENE-EU project (https://www.interveneproject.eu/). During his PhD, Tuomo developed bioinformatics methods and machine learning models to help understand the role of transcription factor-DNA binding in regulation of gene expression. His research currently focuses on leveraging modern machine learning and high-throughput epidemiology methods to address public health issues using rich data from national registries and biobanks. He is also interested in the application and development of explainable AI techniques. In his free time he likes to do all things related to beach volleyball.
Congratulations to Michaela Feodoroff for publishing three 1st-author papers in a couple of months: 1. SLAS Discovery, 2. Molecular Therapy Oncolytics, and 3. SLAS Discovery
1. Michaela Feodoroff, Piia Mikkonen, Mariliina Arjama, et al. Protocol for 3D drug sensitivity and resistance testing of patient-derived cancer cells in 384-well plates. SLAS Discov. Nov 2022.
2. Firas Hamdan*, Michaela Feodoroff*, Salvatore Russo, et al. Controlled release of enhanced cross-hybrid IgGA Fc PD-L1 inhibitors using oncolytic adenoviruses. Mol. Ther. Oncolytics. Feb 2023
3. Michaela Feodoroff, Piia Mikkonen, Laura Turunen, et al. Comparison of two supporting matrices for patient-derived cancer cells in 3D drug sensitivity and resistance testing assay (3D-DSRT). SLAS Discov. March 2023
Michaela is a doctoral researcher in Vilja Pietiäinen's team, under Olli Kallioniemi group (FIMM), and Vincenzo Cerullo´s (UH/Faculty of Pharmacy, supervised by Mikaela Grönholm) group with co-supervision from clinician Antti Rannikko (UH/HUS). Her research focuses on discovering novel, enhanced immunotherapeutic treatments for urological solid tumors, and her research is part of the iCAN Flagship subproject on complex immuno-organoids. In her research she´s using 3D cell models, clinically relevant drug compounds and oncolytic adenoviruses. Currently, her work focuses on immune system-mediated control of tumor growth and disease progression under the umbrella of precision and translational cancer medicine. In her free time, she enjoys sports and to spend time with friends.
Congratulations to Anniina Tervi for her recent publication in Human Molecular Genetics!
Tervi A, Junna N, Broberg M, et al. Large registry-based analysis of genetic predisposition to tuberculosis identifies genetic risk factors at HLA. Hum. Mol. Genet. 2023
Anniina's doctoral research focuses on the genetic determinants of myalgic encephalotitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) at the population level in the Ollila group. One of the main aims of her PhD research is to understand the complex relationships between ME/CFS and infectious diseases, psychiatric traits, and dysautonomia. In her analyses, she has utilised questionnaire, medical record and genetic data in several longitudinal population cohorts, including FinnGen and the UK Biobank, to identify genetic factors associated with these conditions. She is working on applying advanced epidemiological methods such as Mendelian randomization, to untangle the complex web of cause and effect in these disorders and related illnesses and comorbidities. In her spare time Anniina is an enthusiastic reader and book collector, hiker and a little bit of a painter.
Congratulations to Pyry Helkkula for his recent publication in Communication Biology!
Helkkula P, Hassan S, Saarentaus E, et al. Genome-wide association study of varicose veins identifies a protective missense variant in GJD3 enriched in the Finnish population. Commun Biol. 2023
During his doctoral studies in statistical genetics in the Ripatti group, Pyry has tried to identify novel links between gene function and risk of cardiometabolic disorders, and find new ways to increase the probability of such discoveries. Firstly, he has leveraged the Finnish protein-coding variant enrichment and longitudinal population cohorts with rich phenotype data. Secondly, in his analyses, he has used existing and novel medication-based intermediary phenotypes that inform the likelihood of developing cardiometabolic disorders. Apart from medical research and trying to identify patterns in complex phenomena in general, Pyry enjoys doing a variety of sports and spending time with friends and family.