People

Get to know the team!
Päivi Pihlajamaa

Principal investigator

I am an Academy Research Fellow and a Principal investigator at the Research Programs Unit and Medicum at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki. I am leading the Cancer Epimetabolism lab with the aim of revealing novel mechanisms of cancer growth.

My background is in molecular and cell biology with a PhD from Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, and post-doc training at University of Helsinki, Finland, and University of Cambridge, UK. I am an expert in cancer biology, epigenetics, and CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing methods, such as the competitive precision genome editing (CGE) method for studying the functional significance of small genomic features.

Subhamoy Datta

Postdoctoral researcher

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Cancer Epimetabolism lab. I have done my PhD studies in the Department of Biological Sciences and Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, India, studying the regulation of genome organization and function. In Cancer Epimetabolism lab, my main project focuses on understanding how alterations in the metabolic pathways affect the gene regulatory landscape in colon cancer cells. I am using various functional genomics methods, such as CRISPR-based genome editing combined with transcriptome and epigenome analysis at a single-cell resolution. 

Lu Gao

PhD student

I am a PhD student in the Cancer Epimetabolism lab and in the iCANDOC doctoral pilot. I have graduated from the College of Veterinary Medicine,Yangling, Shaanxi, China. I am interested in transcription factor functions in cancer, and my main project focuses on transcription factors that control liver cancer growth under different metabolic conditions. For studying this, I am using CRISPR-screens, ChIP-sequencing, single-cell RNA-sequencing and other large-scale genomics methods.

Veera Erkkilä

Lab manager

I am studying in the Master's Programme in Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnology at the University of Helsinki, and I am currently working as a lab manager in the Cancer Epimetabolism and Enhancer Biology labs. My tasks include mammalian cell culture, and various molecular biology methods as well as supporting all the lab operations.

Emilia Kotinurmi

Master's thesis student

I am studying in Master's Programme in Genetics and Molecular Biosciences at the University of Helsinki, and currently working towards my Master’s thesis in Cancer Epimetabolism group. My project focuses on the effects of acetyl-CoA metabolism on epigenome reprogramming in liver cancer, using modern functional genomics methods and CRISPR-based genome editing. 

Iiro Tikkakoski

Research assistant

I am an undergraduate student in the Degree Program in Medicine at University of Helsinki. I am working as a research assistant in the Cancer Epimetabolism group, studying how the alterations in the methionine cycle affect epigenome and gene regulation in colon cancer cells using CRISPR and genomics methods.