Maria studied molecular biology at the University of Jyväskylä, and obtained her MSc in 1999. She did her PhD thesis with Pekka Lappalainen at the Institute of Biotechnology (BI), graduating in 2002. After this Maria worked as a post-doc funded by the EMBO Long Term Fellowship in the lab of Richard Treisman at London Research Institute of Cancer Research UK 2003-2007. There she developed interest in nuclear functions of actin especially in regulating gene expression. Maria returned to BI in 2007 as a group leader, and is currently also the scientific leader of the Light Microscopy Unit (LMU) at BI. Out of work, Maria tries to keep up with her three children and enjoys trailrunning as well as orienteering.
Maria graduated from the Department of Genetics, Moscow State University. During her PhD she was studying population genetics and focusing on the comparative analysis of the methods for SNP detection. Later she worked as a post-doc in the lab of Professor Jussi Taipale, Genome-Scale Biology Research Program in University of Helsinki, studding cell cycle regulation in normal and tumor cells. Currently her main interest is to investigate the molecular mechanism how actin regulates transcription.
Paula studied biotechnology and food engineering at the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. In the lab, she takes care of general things and participates in the scientific projects by providing help in various laboratory techniques for cell and molecular biology.