Contact members by email first_name.last_name @ helsinki.fi.
Professor of Statistics at University of Helsinki, PI at Center of Excellence in Complex Disease Genetics at Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM).
Matti Pirinen received a PhD in Statistics in 2009 from University of Helsinki on MCMC algorithms for Bayesian inference. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Peter Donnelly at University of Oxford working on genome-wide association studies of the Wellcome Trust Case-Control Consortium 2 (2009-2012). He completed two projects as a Fellow of Research Council of Finland at FIMM (2012-2020). From 2023, Matti has been Professor of Statistics at University of Helsinki following a tenure track period 2017-2022. His personal homepage.
Doctoral researcher, Master of Science
Annina’s doctoral research explores Y-chromosomal genetic variation and its broader role in human health. Her work includes analyzing Y chromosome variation in Finland, looking into how it might be involved in complex diseases, and developing resources to better capture Y-chromosomal variants. As one might expect, she is particularly interested in the male-mediated Y chromosome and its unique biological characteristics. Annina holds a MSc degree in Genetics and Molecular Biosciences at the University of Helsinki.
Doctoral researcher, Engineer & Master of Science.
Gabin's research focuses on using epidemiologically informative twin study designs to unravel multi-omic underpinnings of disease and human behavior, while elucidating the role of genetics and environment in identified associations. Past and current projects have focused on traits such as obesity, substance use, aging, and mental health.
Doctoral researcher, Master of Science
Joonas is a iCANDOC doctoral pilot student, and works on the development of statistical methodology in genetics. His current project centers around finding solutions to issues arising from meta-analyses in genetic fine-mapping, and applying them to pan-cancer research. He received his BSc in Statistics at the University of Glasgow in 2021, and his MSc in Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Helsinki in 2024.
Doctoral researcher, Master of Science
Juha started as a PhD student in 2024. He is studying the complex interactions between genetic and environmental risk factors of diseases, and how such risk factors are distributed in the population. Additionally, Juha is interested in how genetic variation observed in modern human populations could provide insights into human evolutionary history and past migration events. Juha received his BSc in Computer Science from University of Jyväskylä, and his MSc in Life Science Informatics from University of Helsinki.
Doctoral Student, Master of Science
Heidi is working with large-scale genome-wide studies, and doing her PhD focusing on studying the genetic background of migraine. Currently, she is working with a large global migraine genome-wide association meta-analysis data that combines over 100,000 cases and 750,000 controls through an international collaboration. She did her undergraduate studies in statistics at University of Helsinki.
Doctoral researcher, Master of Science
Linda’s research focuses on the genetics of lipidomics and its link to genetics and cardio-metabolic disease risk. In her current project, she examines the link between lipid species and diseases by utilizing data from GeneRISK, FinnGen, UKBB, and Generation Scotland. She received her BSc in Bioinformatics and Genome Research from the University of Bielefeld, Germany, and her MSc in Life Science Informatics from the University of Helsinki.
Master’s student, Bachelor of Science
Panagiotis is working on his master’s thesis, comparing methods for deriving latent factors that mediate genetic associations between sets of genetic variants and phenotypes. His research focuses on analysing Type 2 Diabetes datasets, with the goal of validating known disease-causing pathways and potentially identifying new ones. He is interested in applying statistical and machine learning methods to biomedical sciences, particularly in epidemiology and genetics. He holds a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Crete, Greece, and is now studying Data Science at the University of Helsinki.
Doctoral researcher, Master of Science
Yu mainly focuses on the role of X chromosome in complex diseases and sex difference. She is especially interested in how the unique biology of the X chromosome can contribute to phenotypes and diseases and how it can be studied in genetics. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology and a Master’s degree in Translational Medicine.