Group members

 DDS, PhD, Professor of Oral Pathology 

Born in 1958, Professor Tuula Salo graduated from the University of Oulu's Institute of Dentistry in Finland in 1983. She completed her PhD in 1985, earned a specialty degree in oral pathology in 1997, and became an associate professor in 1998. After diverse teaching and research roles, including postgraduate training in Birmingham, Alabama, Los Angeles, and Vancouver, Salo  was appointed as the full professor in 2004. She served as vice dean (research) at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, from 2006 to 2009, and was a member of the Health Research Committee of the Academy of Finland from 2004 to 2009.

Since 2015, Salo has been a permanent member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters and, in the same year, was appointed as a professor of Oral Pathology at the University of Helsinki. She has also been a visiting professor at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Sao Paulo, Brazil, since 2015.

Professor Tuula Salo's research primarily focuses on oral molecular biology and pathology, with recent emphasis on invasion mechanisms, tumor microenvironment, and prognostic markers of oral tongue cancer. Her research group has developed innovative human tissue 3D cancer invasion models. Salo has authored over 300 research articles and numerous textbook chapters in oral pathology and medicine. With an H-index of 64, she is a renowned lecturer at national and international scientific and clinical conferences. In 2010, Professor Salo received the IAOP Rod Cawson Prize for her outstanding contributions to academia and teaching in the field.