Group Leader
Professor Riitta Seppänen-Kaijansinkko (Suuronen) MD, DDS, PhD, DrTech (h.c.), FEBOMS Professor of Translational Research on Oral and Maxillofacial Sciences Specialist in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (Med & Dent) and Chief Physician in Helsinki University Central Hospital. From 2003-2015 she was Professor of Medical Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering, University of Tampere during which she was also head of Regea Institute for Regenerative medicine. She has published over 150 original publications, and her h-index is 43. She is an internationally recognized scientist having been invited lecturer in over 200 internationally congresses and meetings. She has received several honors, Apollonia Price and Arje Scheinin medal and Dr. Tech (h.c.) of Tampere University of Technology and Honorary Professorship from University of Hong Kong and recently Apollonia’s 125-year medal.
Adjunct Professor, PhD, MSc
My research is focussed on studying genetics changes in cancer. After completing my PhD on cervical cancer, I worked as molecular geneticist at the Centre for Genetic disorders, GND University, India, where I performed gene mapping studies on inherited eye diseases. I moved to Finland in 2002 and have since then carried out genetic studies on different cancers, including studies on diagnostic/prognostic cancer markers and markers predictive of treatment response. I have applied different methodologies including microarrays and next generation sequencing to study cancer markers from various minimally invasive sample types. Currently my research is directed towards understanding the molecular pathways involved in osteosarcoma and studying extracellular vesicles-mediated intercellular communication of osteosarcoma cells. My interest is to also identify extracellular vesicle- based markers in plasma samples of osteosarcoma patients.
University Lecturer, MD, DDS, PhD
Dr. Olli-Pekka Lappalainen received his Licentiate’s degree in Dental Medicine in 1998, Specialist in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery degree in 2009, Licentiate of Medicine degree in 2011 and PhD in Medicine 2016 from the University of Oulu. His PhD thesis focused on tissue engineering by using autologous bone grafts, stem cells, growth factors and biomaterials in the treatment of large calvarial tissue defects. He has been working on regenerative technologies with tissue cultures, reconstructive surgery applications and on osteosarcoma research, the latter being also his current research interest. He is an author in 6 high level scientific publications in his interest field.
olli-pekka.lappalainen@helsinki.fi
Adjunct Professor, Doctor of Dental Science, Licentiate of Medicine (DDS, MD), resident doctor in oral and maxillofacial surgery
Dr. Johanna Uittamo received her Licentiate’s degree in Dental Medicine in 2008, PhD in Dental Science in 2012 and Licenciate’s degree in Medicine 2016 from the University of Helsinki. Her PhD thesis focused on oral cancer and the role of acetaldehyde in the etiology of the disease. She has been working with oral microbes, isolating and culturing them and analyzing the ability of the microbes to produce acetaldehyde. The current focus is to find out the role of exosomes in the oral cancer, in both sarcomas and carcinomas. She is an author of 9 high level scientific publications in the field.
Sari is a registered nurse by background and a study nurse in our group, in charge of handling clinical samples for our research.
Doctoral researcher, MSc
Snehadri graduated with a Master's degree in Molecular Biosciences (Biochemistry) from the University of Helsinki in 2018. In his Master's thesis, he investigated the effects of different lipoproteins on the formation of platelet-derived EVs. He has also worked in the EV Core facility in Viikki, which gave him a good level of experience in the EV field. In his current research, Snehadri is investigating EVs in the osteosarcoma microenvironment and also working on developing a 3D osteosarcoma model.
Doctoral researcher, MSc
Mahamudul completed his MSc degree in Protein Science and Biotechnology from the University of Oulu. He received the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship to conduct research at Leibniz Institute on Aging- Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI), Germany in a project investigating therapeutic potential of treating cancer (including osteosarcoma cells) by manipulating mTOR signaling in cancer cells. Also, in the Laboratory of Structural Biology at Biocenter Oulu, he investigated the role of Wnt4 in skin development. The main objective of his current project is to identify novel molecular pathways associated with osteosarcoma pathogenesis, new drug targets and diagnostic markers by comprehensive analysis of genetic alterations, changes in expression of RNA/miRNA/noncoding RNA and proteins in osteosarcoma tumor tissue samples and also in osteosarcoma cell lines.
Doctoral researcher, MSc, B. Pharm
Aurin recently graduated with an MSc in Protein Science and Biotechnology from University of Oulu. She accomplished her bachelor degree in pharmacy from East West University and worked as a registered pharmacist which enabled her understand the pharmacological effects of drugs in human. She has served as a research intern at Leibniz Institute on Aging- Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI), Germany, where she studied epi-/genetic and molecular mechanisms of stem cell aging. In Phytochemistry laboratory, she investigated a unique analgesic principle from Curcuma amada by bioguided isolation & purification and evaluated pharmacological effects on mice and published in an international journal. Currently she is studying the differential gene expression and HIF-related pathways in OS cells using RNA sequencing analysis.