We have a long-standing tradition and commitment to education. A total of 28 students have graduated and defended their PhD over the years with our group as the primary affiliation and 1-2 M.Sc students complete their master’s thesis yearly in the lab.
Professor of Immunology, Chief Physician
Professor Seppo Meri is Professor of Immunology at the Medical Faculty, University of Helsinki, Finland and the Chief Physician of Research in Microbiology at HUSLAB, laboratory of the Helsinki University Hospital. He is also a visiting professor at the Humanitas University, Milan, Italy. His medical speciality is in Clinical Microbiology. He served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas in 1988 and in 1989–90 as an EMBO fellow at MRC, Cambridge, UK. Seppo's research interests include diseases related to disturbances in complement regulation, pregnancy disorders, vascular damage and reasons for increased susceptibility to microbial infections. His group has published around 250 original research articles and 130 reviews or textbook chapters on complement, autoimmunity and microbial escape.
Seppo Meri's ResearchGate Profile
Seppo Meri's University of Helsinki TUHAT Profile
MD, PhD, Docent of Immunology, Clinical Teacher
Hanna Jarva is Adjunct Professor and Senior Lecturer. She completed her PhD thesis with title: Interactions of Soluble Complement regulators with Pathogenic Bacteria, in 2004. She is a collaborator and currently she is working on projects involving complement and microbes and complement and autoimmunity.
PhD, Docent, Principal Investigator
Ayman Khattab is a University researcher with over 15 years of experience in malaria research. Ayman obtained his PhD in 2003 from the University of Tübingen, Germany. He conducted his PhD work at the Institute for Tropical Medicine, University of Tübingen and the Albert Schweitzer Hospital, Lambaréné, Gabon where he studied the pathogenesis of placental malaria. In late-2003, Ayman started his post-doctoral work at Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg. He continued his research on placental malaria and PfEMP-1. He also expanded his research to cover other parasite surface antigens such as RIFINs and STEVORs, their expression in various stages of the parasites, their function and role in pathogenesis, and in the acquired immunity in individuals from malaria-endemic areas.
In July 2007, Ayman joined the Haartman Institute, University of Helsinki, to set up a malaria research lab. The lab maintains the malaria parasite, P. falciparum cultures and Anopheles mosquito colonies to study malaria pathogenesis and to develop novel interventions for the control of malaria transmission.
Specifically, Ayman focusses his research on 1) The surface antigens of P. falciparum as virulence factors 2) Complement escape by the P. falciparum parasite 3) The immune interaction between mosquitoes and the human host and 4) Mosquito control.
PhD, Visiting Investigator
Kurosh Kalantar is an accomplished immunologist and researcher specializing in vaccine development and immunodeficiency diseases. He earned his PhD in Immunology (2013) from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (SUMS), where his early research laid the foundation for his future contributions to medical science. In 2012, he undertook a sabbatical at the Diabetes & Autoimmunity Research Laboratory (DeARLab) in Paris, further honing his expertise in autoimmunity and metabolic disorders. His work there strengthened his interdisciplinary approach to immunology. After completing his PhD, Kalantar was appointed as an Assistant Professor at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. As a principal investigator and supervisor, he has guided over 20 PhD, MSc, and medical doctorate students, fostering the next generation of scientists. His commitment to education and research is further reflected in his 60+ published articles in peer-reviewed journals, contributing valuable insights to immunology and vaccine research. Since 2023, he has been a Visiting Researcher in our group, where he continues to advance his work on vaccines and immunodeficiency disorders. His ongoing projects focus on:
PhD, Senior Research Assistant
Marcel received his PhD in 1992 at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands. The title of his thesis was Antihypertensive Drugs and the Microcirculation. He is a research assistant in the Complement group, assisting a number of researchers with their projects.
PhD
Inkeri is a reproductive immunologist who defended her thesis on the immunogenetics of pre-eclampsia in 2017 at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include genetic and immunological mechanisms in complications of human pregnancy. Inkeri also studies histology and immunology of the placenta. Her current projects aim at understanding the role of dysregulation of the complement system and immunogenetic incompatibility in early pregnancy in the etiology of pre-eclampsia and the range of complement-mediated mechanisms in the development of the disease in later pregnancy.
Inkeri enjoys teaching and collaborates with several domestic and international research groups in reproductive epidemiology, complement studies in pregnancy, and vascular diseases.
Inkeri Lokki's ResearchGate
Inkeri Lokki's University of Helsinki TUHAT profile
MSc, PhD student
Subam is a doctoral researcher currently pursuing his doctoral studies in affiliation with the doctoral program in Population Health at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki. He graduated with MSc degree in molecular medicine in 2016. During his MSc project at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, he investigated the phagocytic proteins in malaria vector Anopheles as a potential marker to characterize the mosquito hemocyte.
In 2018 Subam completed his MA degree in Anthropology, specializing in Medical Anthropology. During his MA thesis, he conducted an ethnographic study on community perception of malaria-associated fevers and health-seeking behavior within the community in rural Tanzania.
Subam has been associated with malaria research for over 4 years and has experience in malaria immunobiology, vector immunology, applied entomology and malaria epidemiology. As a part of his PhD project, Subam has been conducting epidemiological studies, community surveys and supervising the phase II semi-field trials and phase III community trials to evaluate the efficacy novel malaria control tools in reducing malaria transmission in the endemic region of Tanzania.
MSc, PhD student
Vinaya Dulipati graduated in 2018 with an MSc degree (5-year integrated programme) in biotechnology from the Institute of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology, Savitribai Phule Pune University (formerly University of Pune), India.
During her Master’s thesis work with us, she assessed several previously untested variants of the Lyme’s disease biomarkers to develop an effective proof of concept method for the screening of novel bacterial antigenic variants in patient cohorts.
She aims to explore further the complement evading mechanisms of opportunistic bacteria such as Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Klebsiella, and Enterobacter.
MD,PhD student
MD, PhD student
MD, PhD student
Leo graduated as a MD from the University of Helsinki in 2015. While working as a junior doctor, he grew aware of the problems caused by antimicrobial resistance among pathogenic bacteria. This concern transformed into an interest in studying the field and assessing potential new remedies. In the current early phase of the PhD project, Leo is setting up assays for evaluating bacterial killing of several Gram-negative multi-drug resistant opportunistic pathogens by hyperimmune globulin, to be followed by potential clinical trials.
PhD Student
Carmen Chen graduated in 2021 at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) with a MSc in Biotechnology. During her master’s thesis project, she identified a pivotal virulence factor which was exploited by a clinical isolated uropathogenic E. coli to induce inflammatory cell death in human macrophages.
After her graduation, she pursued her education as an early-stage researcher in the CORVOS project of The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – Innovative Training Networks, which is a European joint doctoral program. Her project mainly focuses on bacterial adaptation mechanisms to different environments, and the interaction between multidrug-resistant, gram-negative bacteria, bacteriophages and the complement system. In addition to conducting her research at the University of Helsinki, she also did part of her research project at the Humanitas University in Milan.
Hang is a student of the joint PhD program CORVOS, under Humanitas University in Milano, and the University of Helsinki. She studies science in multiple disciplines, from physics, mathematics to life sciences. In her spare time, she enjoys studying subjects such as international relations, economics and social development.
PhD researcher
Mari Humalajoki graduated as Bachelor of Science in molecular biosciences from University of Helsinki (2017-2020) and continued her studies towards a MMSc with main topic in Forensic Science from Uppsala University in Sweden (2020-2022). In addition, she is a Master of Philosophy in molecular and analytical human biosciences from Helsinki University (2022-2024) and is continuing towards a PhD as a complement geneticist under Inkeri Lokki and Seppo Meri (2024-). Her PhD explores central complement C3 deficient individuals and the function of their immune system, focusing on genetic and phenotypic assessments as well as omics approaches. Humalajoki’s thesis is funded by the National Doctoral Education Pilot based on the Immune System (ImmuDOCs).
Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/mari-humalajoki
Research portal: https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/fi/persons/mari-hannele-humalajoki
Medical Laboratory Technologist
Secretary
Liisa takes care of the administrative issues related to group projects. She takes care of HR matters, communication and meeting arrangements. She coordinates grant applications and reports, follows budgets etc.