Professor Janna Saarela, M.D., Ph.D., is Research Director at FIMM. She was Deputy Director and Head of the FIMM Technology Centre, 2009-2019. As of 2019, Janna Saarela is also the Director of Centre of Molecular Medicine Norway (NCMM), and serves as a senior consultant for the Clinical Genetics Department of the Helsinki University Hospital.
Janna Saarela received her M.D. in 1996, her Ph.D. in 1998 and has been a resident at the University Hospital of Oulu and the Hospital for Children and Adolescents, Helsinki University Central Hospital. She worked as a post doctoral fellow at the National Public Health Institute, Finland (1998) and at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Dept. Human Genetics (1998-2000). She served as Senior Researcher, Head of the biotechnology unit, National Public Health Institute, 2000-2008. She set up the Biomedicum Biochip Center core unit in 2001 and co-coordinated the unit, 2001- 2008.
Janna Saarela is Adjunct Professor at the University of Helsinki in Medical Molecular Genetics and Professor in Medicine at the University of Oslo. In 2008 she was awarded the Kappa Delta Elisabeth Winston Lanier award for outstanding orthopaedic research and in 2019 she was elected a member of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Her current research interests are focused on Human Immune Disorders and development of methods for sharing and analysis of sensitive health data. She serves as a scientific expert in several international groups, such as International MS Genetics consortium (IMSGC), Immunodeficiency, Autoinflammatory and Autoimmune Diseases (ERN-RITA) Molecular Testing working group, ClinGen Immunology CDWG Exececutive Committee and Nordic Association of Clinical Genomics network (NACG).
Email: janna.saarela@helsinki.fi
FIMM-EMBL Doctoral Student
Email: meri.kaustio@helsinki.fi
Doctoral Student
Email: johanna.lehtonen@helsinki.fi
Doctoral Student
Email: pu.chen@helsinki.fi
Data manager in multipleMS EU project
Email: kimmo.paakkonen@helsinki.fi