Professor M. Romantschuk prepared his PhD thesis in molecular virology, in particular, early steps in virus penetration using the bacteriophage phi6 as the model organism. During a post doctoral period he switched to the study of molecular plant-microbe interaction, with Pseudomonas syringae as the main target organism. Later on, the MPMI work has continued but was complemented with environmental biotechnology as holder of a professorship at the University of Helsinki in this area. He now leads a group of ca 10 scientists. He is a member of The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, and he has published almost 150 articles in international peer-reviewed scientific periodicals.
Docent Nina Atanasova is the Principal Investigator of the Aerovirology research group. She is a microbiologist specialized in virology, atmospheric microbiology and microbiology of extreme environments.
Email: nina.atanasova@helsinki.fi
MSc Svetlana Sofieva is currently a PhD student at the University of Helsinki in Doctoral Programme of Integrative Life Sciences (ILS) starting from May 2020 and a visiting researcher at University of Helsinki (Finnish Meteorological Institute). She has a Master degree in Genetics and a Bachelor degree in Molecular Biosciences from University of Helsinki. From November 2018 she has been employed by Finnish Meteorological Institute to work on atmospheric aerosols of biogenic origin.
Email: svetlana.sofieva@helsinki.fi and svetlana.sofieva@fmi.fi
Msc Rasmus Malmgren is a graduate of the master’s programme in microbiology and microbial biotechnology at the University of Helsinki. He is currently working on his phD focusing on aerosol transmission of viruses.