Dr Ollila received her PhD in 2013 from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Helsinki, mentored by Dr Tiina Paunio and Dr Tarja Porkka-Heiskanen (Stenberg). For the following four years trained as a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and was mentored by Dr Emmanuel Mignot and Dr Douglas Levinson examining the genetic underpinnings of type-1 narcolepsy. In 2018 Dr Ollila joined Dr. Jonathan Pritchard's team at Stanford Univerisy training first as a research fellow and later as a visiting instructor. Dr Ollila was co-mentored by Richa Saxena from Center of Genomic Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard medical school. Dr Ollila's main research interests are genetic epidemiology of sleep and brain autoimmunity and she has over 30 publications in the field of sleep, narcolepsy and autoimmunity.
I am a postdoctoral researcher between the Ollila and Helle groups, with my main areas of research being the genetcis of sleep disorders and congenital heart diseases. I work mainly with genome-wide and exome-wide association analyses, Mendelian randomization, polygenic risk and single-cell RNA sequencing.
My main projects involve genetics and molecular mechanisms of sleep-related phenotypes and Long COVID. I am coordinating the international Long COVID Host Genetics Initiative collaboration, aiming to elucidate why some people suffer from lingering symptoms for months or even years after the acute phase of COVID-19 infection. I have always been interested in the bidirectional interplay of the brain and the peripheral systems. My background is in biochemistry, but during my master's studies and PhD project I started swimming from the wet lab towards data analyses and computational methods. My PhD research with Dr Tarja Porkka-Heiskanen (Stenberg) at the Sleep Team Helsinki focused on the effects of sleep loss on the immune system and metabolism. This included analysing transcriptomics and metabolomics data from experimentally sleep-deprived young males and epidemiological cohorts (as a visiting researcher with Prof Tiina Paunio at the National Institute for Health and Welfare). In addition to keeping young human males awake for extended periods, I also developed a sleep deprivation method for zebrafish larvae. The last few years I was keeping vigil in another sense, developing the safety and availability of Finnish health and welfare services, as a data scientist at the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health. When I'm not tackling life science problems in silico, I'm tackling people on rugby pitch, practicing acrobatics in circus trainings, or escaping from rooms.
Lea is a postdoctoral researcher working with the Ollila Lab in FIMM and with Dr. Elise Robinson at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Her projects focus on the role of sleep in autism. She is also interested in circadian and circannual patterns in large electronic health record data, such as in the FinnGen study. Lea is also a member of the Young Academy Finland (Nuorten Tiedeakatemia) and is a freelance science writer.
I received my licenciate degree in dentistry 2012 and have since been practicing dentistry in both the private and public sectors as well as in the clinical teaching environment at HUS (Helsingin ja Uudenmaan sairaanhoitopiiri). I am aiming for clinical specialisation studies regarding prosthodontics and occlusion physiology. I have some backgroung in engineering physics and mathematics from my studies at the Helsinki University of Technology (now part of Aalto University). In Hanna Ollila's group I am working on my PhD project which concerns the genetics of sleep bruxism and its correlates. I would like to open and explore the links between sleep and this clinically important phenomenon that presents itself frequently at every dentist's office.
Research-oriented orthodontist with a strong background in statistics and genetics. Holds a PhD in the epidemiology and genetics of sleep apnea and currently works as a postdoctoral researcher in Hanna Ollila's group at FIMM and in Professor Richa Saxena's group at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute. Research focuses on the genetics of sleep, craniofacial traits, and infection-related mechanisms, with particular interest in how these intersect through shared biological pathways. Has extensive experience in genome-wide association studies and large-scale registry data analysis, advancing science and innovation at the intersection of data-driven research, genetics, and orthodontics.
Graduated in 2017 with a Master's degree in Life Science Technologies from Aalto University and subsequently worked in the pharmaceutical industry for five years. Pursued a second Master's degree in Translational Medicine at the University of Helsinki. PhD research focuses on infectious diseases—particularly Lyme disease, hantaviral infections, and dermatophytosis—and how human genetic variation influences susceptibility and disease outcomes, with special interest in long-term consequences of viral infections such as ME/CFS, Long COVID, and chronic Lyme disease.
After completing an MSc in Genetics at the University of Helsinki, Rafeul joined the Ollila Lab as a shared doctoral researcher between the Urbanucci Group at the Prostate Cancer Research Center, Tampere University, and the Ollila Group. His research focuses on the shared genetic architecture between androgen signaling and psychiatric pathways, using 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors as a model system to understand drug response and side effects.
Graduated with an MSc in human genetics in 2021, with thesis focusing on the role of lncRNAs in psychiatric disorders. PhD researcher in the FIMM-EMBL International PhD program, jointly supervised by Hanna Ollila and Helena Kilpinen, focusing on understanding the shared genetic determinants between sleep conditions and neuropsychiatric disorders. Utilizing FinnGen genetic data and electronic health records to understand the epidemiology of understudied sleep phenotypes and their comorbid neuropsychiatric disorders, with further experimental validation in CRISPR Cas9-engineered iPSC models.
Madis holds double Master’s degrees in Computer Science from Aalto University and KTH Royal Institute of Technology and is pursuing an MD at the University of Copenhagen. His research focuses on chronobiology in cancer, including how circadian and seasonal timing influences drug efficacy and disease outcomes. He also develops the GWAS Harmonizer, a computational tool that automates the standardization of genome-wide association studies across biobanks and reference builds, substantially reducing preprocessing time and enabling cross-cohort integration and reproducible genomic research.