Docent of biochemistry, group leader
Sigrid Jusélius Senior researcher
PI at Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland
Author of 141 peer reviewed articles, h-index 48 (google scholar)
Orcid ID:
Contact:
Department of Clinical Chemistry and Hematology
Haartmaninkatu 8
00290 Helsinki, FINLAND
Tel. +358-9 471 71734
Informal summary of the
I am an adjunct professor of biochemistry at the Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland and since 2009 I have been a PI in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki. After receiving my D.Sc. degree in 2000, I worked for two years as a Marie Curie Industrial Host fellow at GlaxoSmithKline, UK. Since 2004 I have been a Senior Scientist at the Department of Clinical Chemistry, University of Helsinki, which includes a five-year period as an Academy Research Fellow and 4-year term as a Sigrid Jusélius Senior researcher.
In my doctoral thesis I identified diverse tissue specific glycoforms of glycodelin. Our findings demonstrated that the glycodelins represent one of the foremost examples of how glycosylation dictates the function of a glycoprotein. More recently my group went on to show that glycodelin is differentially glycosylated in endometrial cancer and differentiates endometrial cancer cells towards a less aggressive phenotype, resulting in reduced tumor growth in a preclinical animal model. These studies have generated almost 60 publications in journals such as Endocrine reviews and Diabetes.
During the last 20 years my main research focus has been on the functions and diagnostic potential of prostatic proteases. So far this has yielded three successfully completed doctoral theses I have supervised and well over 40 publications. Among these studies we showed that the antiangiogenic activity of PSA is dependent on its proteolytic activity. In an international collaborative effort, which I coordinated, we developed small molecule- and peptide-based stimulators of PSA activity, aiming to slow down prostate cancer growth.
In addition to basic research experience, I also have research experience in pharmaceutical industry from my postdoctoral period at GlaxoSmithKline, UK. This exposure to the drug discovery process, will be helpful when research innovations are translated to the benefit of patients.
Education of postgraduate students including supervision of PhD projects, and organization of student seminars and international symposia have been an integral part of my academic life. I feel that scientists have the responsibility to communicate science to a wider audience. For that purpose, I was, for nine years, the Chair (currenlty board member) of the
PhD student
Ruusu-Maaria Merivirta is a doctoral student at the Koistinen group. Her research focuses on proteases as prognostic markers and targets for prostate cancer therapy. Ruusu obtained her MSc degree in Cell Biology from the University of Jyväskylä in 2008. Subsequently, she spent a year at the Baker IDI Heart&Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia. Upon her return to Finland, she was appointed as the Senior Laboratory Technician in the High Throughput Biomedicine unit at Finnish Institute for Molecular Medicine, FIMM. In 2014, she was recruited as a Laboratory Coordinator to the Kallioniemi group where she worked for six years in the area of systems medicine and precision therapeutics in cancer. Prior to joining the Koistinen group, Ruusu worked as a Lab Manager and Research Specialist in McWilliams lab, at the University of Helsinki. Currently, her work aims to identify and validate the proteases involved in prostate cancer growth, invasion and metastasis by developing novel 3D tissue and cell models.
Lab technician
Annikki Löfhjelm is a laboratory technician with about 20 years of experience in various cell, protein and molecular biology techniques. In addition to working with cell lines in 3D models, Annikki has carried out functional studies using patient-derived tissue and cell models, developed in the lab. She is proficient with immunohistochemistry, protein expression and purification, immunoassay development, DNA and RNA purification and quantitation, cloning and protein expression methods and many others. Annikki also takes care of the laboratory routines.
Xiaodan Ouyang is working as a postdoctoral researcher in Koistinen´s group. She completed her bachelor's in biotechnology in 2016 from South China Agriculture University. Then she got her M.Sc. degree in fermentation engineering from South China University of Technology in 2019. She constructed and optimized the (+)-nootkatone biosynthetic pathway in S. cerevisiae to develop a new yeast-based platform for the biosynthesis of (+)-valencene and its related sesquiterpenes. After that, she joined the Prof. Kaarina Sivonen´s cyanogroup to pursue her PhD degree under the supervision of Docent David Fewer in University of Helsinki. Her PhD project mainly focused on exploring the structural diversity and biosynthetic pathway of secondary metabolites, especially non-ribosomal peptides, from cyanobacteria by using structural chemistry, synthetic biology, genomics, and bioinformatics techniques. Currently, she is screening selective inhibitors of human trypsin-isoenzymes from cyanobacteria culture collection and via in silico screening (collaborative effort with Antti Poso), aiming to develop potent inhibitors for trypsin-3.