People

Kuure lab enjoys the company of early-career and more experienced researchers who all are, or become, fascinated about miracles of developmental biology. We are extremely fortunate to get technical help from part-time technician and passionate undergraduate students.
Satu Kuure

Docent, Principal Investigator / Director of GM-unit

Satu studied biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Oulu, and completed her PhD at the medical faculty of University of Helsinki in 2007. She then moved to do the postdoc with Professor Frank Constantini at Columbia University Medical Center, after which she continued her research at the Institute of Biotechnology (University of Helsinki) with Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 2014 she was appointed as junior PI at BI, and in 2015 as a director of GM-unit at the Laboratory Animal Centre of University of Helsinki. Since the fall 2017 her lab has been located in the Faculty of Medicine and in the beginning of 2019 as a part of STEMM research program of Research Programs Unit.

email: Satu Kuure

Niklas Pakkasjärvi

Clinical fellow

Niklas is a pediatric surgeon interested in identifying clinically relevant markers that could be utilized for identifying the  congenital kidney defect patients with the highest risk for renal and urinary track diseases.

email: Niklas Pakkasjärvi

Niklas Pakkasjärvi Researcher unique identifier (ORCID) 

 

Yu-Chia Chen

Senior scientist/molecular biologist

Yu-Chia is a highly experienced molecular biologist whose expertise is shared between GM- and Zebrafish-units. Yu-Chia develops and designs different new in vivo genome editing strategies to be implemented in rodents and fish. Her research background in neuroscience translates to regenerative biology in an innovative and exiting way.

email: Yu-Chia.Chen@helsinki.fi

Tomáš Zárybnický

PhD, postdoc

Tomas received his Master's degree at Charles University, Czech Republic, in the study program of Pharmacy. He continued his PhD research in Prof. Barbora Szotakova research group by studying the hepatotoxicity of terpenes and their effects on liver cells. Tomas is interested in generating new  in vivo disease models for rare syndromes as they are vitally needed for development of novel therapeutic interventions.

email: Tomáš Zárybnický

Tomáš Zárybnický's Researcher unique identifier (ORCID)

Otto Mäkelä

PhD, postdoc

Otto received his Master's degree at University of Tampere, Finland, with major in molecular biology. He continued his PhD research in Dr. Marja Mikkola's research group by studying regulation of hair follicle development. Otto is interested in expanding his expertise to in vivo genome engineering, cancer and new model organism Acomys.

email: Otto Mäkelä

Otto Mäkelä Researcher unique identifier (ORCID)

Julia Koivula

MSc-student

Julia completed her MSc degree at Translational Medicine program by doing her thesis project with Kuure lab. She is interested in embryonic derived Wilms tumor, which is the most common pediatric kidney cancer. Julia utilizes bioinformatic and genetic tools to identify similarities in MAPK/ERK-deficient and Wilms tumor progenitor to reveal new mechanisms driving defective kidney development leading to tumorigenesis.

email: Julia Koivula

Agnés Viherä

Part-time research technician

Agnès is a research technician who started in private companies (Orion, Labsystems) and joined the University of Helsinki in 1997 (Steroid research lab/ Medical chemistry). From 2001, she has been member of Kidney Developmental Biology lab (Hannu Sariola’s group and later Satu Kuure’s group), taking care of the maintenance of the lab and participating in research work (genotyping, cell culture, DNA/RNA work, tissue dissection etc..). She also has been part-time in other labs such as Steroid reseach lab, Evo-Devo (Jukka Jernvall) and just started in BSCC (Timo Otonkoski). She loves dark chocolate and reading.

 

email: Agnés Viherä

 

Alumni
  • Jussi Kupari, post doc
  • Hyuak Nam Kwon, post doc
  • Sonja Lindfors, post doc
  • Fu-Ping Zhang, senior scientist
  • Saana Metso, MSc student
  • Anneliis Ihermann-Hella, PhD student
  • Hao Li, PhD student
  • Kristen Kurtzeborn, PhD student
  • Vladislav Iaroshenko, PhD student