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
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
Senior scientist, MD; PhD
Fu-Ping got his MD from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China, and PhD and Docent in Molecular Endocrinology from University of Turku, Finland. He has worked at University of Helsinki and University of Turku as a Postdoc and a Senior scientist after he finished PhD, and he has more than 20 years’ research experience in molecular biology, reproductive biology, endocrinology, genetic engineering, especially with broad experience in designing, generating and characterization of genetically modified mouse models. Over 70 mouse models were generated and more than 50 papers were published in the international journals during his research career. He has joined GM-unit at the Laboratory Animal Centre, HiLIFE, University of Helsinki since Spring 2018.
email: Fu-Ping Zhang
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
MSc, doctoral candidate
Anneliis studied animal physiology and genetics during her Bachelor's degree at the University of Turku, Finland. She then received her M.Sc. in molecular biotechnology from the International Master's Degree Programme in Biotechnology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She had joined the Kuure lab for a master's thesis project and then continued for her PhD research. Anneliis is studying how the Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway regulates progenitor cells during renal differentiation and morphogenesis. Currently she is finishing her PhD thesis.
email: Anneliis Ihermann-Hella
MSc, doctoral candidate
Kristen completed her Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Utah where she was an undergraduate research scholar in the lab of Prof. David W. Grainger, investigating in vitro nephrotoxicity assays and bio-functional coatings based on recombinant spider silk. She obtained her Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from Tampere University of Technology where her research in the lab of Prof. Markku S. Kulomaa focused on using recombinant protein technology to generate multi-specific proteins. She began her doctoral studies in 2016 at the University of Helsinki in the Kuure group at the Faculty of Medicine. Kristen is interested in the roles of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling during kidney development.
email: Kristen Kurtzeborn
MD; MSc, doctoral candidate
Hao has a multidisciplinary training background in molecular biomedicine. She completed her Bachelor’s study in China (Bachelor of Medicine, Tianjin Medical University) and became a licentiate clinical doctor. After two years work as a pathologist in University Hospital (Tianjin General Hospital, China), Hao relocated to University of Helsinki to pursue a Master degree in Neuroscience. She developed great interest in molecular biomedicine during the study and continues as a Ph.D. student after graduation. Hao is interested in cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying cell fate determination in kidney development.
email: Hao Li
MSc-student
Vlad is a MSc student with biochemistry as a major. He is interested in signaling pathways and completing his Master's thesis with kidney development studies.
email: Vlad Iaroshenko
MSc-student
Saana is a MSc student at Genetics and molecular biosciences program with cell and developmental biology as a major. She is interested in congenital diseases and modelling human fetal LCCS1 in human embryonic stem cells to complete her Master's studies.
email: Saana Metso
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