2012 © Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland FIMM
FIMM Clinical Collaboration Programme
FIMM launched a Clinical Collaboration Programme in 2010 to fund joint appointments and collaborative research opportunities for clinical investigators. FIMM aims to increase its activities in translational research, bringing discoveries from the bench to the bedside and back.
This two-year pilot programme started in late 2010 and three early and mid-career clinical investigators were selected through an international peer review process. FIMM hopes that the clinical collaborators would contribute medically important questions, insights, access to patient materials and data for FIMM investigators, while benefiting from the access to the scientific expertise and strong technology base available at FIMM.
- Tuomas Mirtti, MD, PhD pathologist at the Department of Pathology in HUS and Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki (Haartman Institute), participates in research projects on cancer biomarkers, including the developing of new webmicroscope based analysis tools and multispectral imaging applications. His expertise in histopathology and immunohistochemistry is also valuable in tissue micro array (TMA) construction and in research projects utilizing TMA sections of solid tumours. In the FIMM biobank infrastructure he is responsible for the assurance of tissue integrity and the diagnostic quality of the samples and he participates in the collection of clinico-pathological variables into the biobank database. His research is focusing on the molecular mechanisms of cancer progression and metastasis formation, the main focus being on urological cancers
- Kirsi Pietiläinen's, MD, PhD, research group focuses on the genetic and environmental causes and metabolic consequences of obesity. They aim at a global metabolic profiling of obesity ("obesomics") by using transcriptomics, metabolomics, genomics and epigenomics techniques in samples obtained from highly informative study materials, such as monozygotic, obesity-discordant twin pairs and clinical weight loss interventions.
- Jakob Stenman’s MD, PhD, research collaboration at FIMM, Minerva Institute for Medical Research and at the Department of Clinical Chemistry at University of Helsinki aims to develop multigene predictor assays for personalized cancer diagnostics. A novel technology for quantitative analysis of mRNA expression in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded samples is utilized for large-scale analysis of archival tissue samples. The main focus of the research project is on colon, prostate and breast cancer.
Key Publications:
- Pietiläinen KH, Róg T, Seppänen-Laakso T, Virtue S, Gopalacharyulu P, Tang J, Rodriguez-Cuenca S, Maciejewski A, Naukkarinen J, Rissanen A, Ruskeepää A, Niemelä PS, Velagapudi V, Castillo S, Sysi-Aho M, Hyötyläinen T, Kaprio J, Yki-Järvinen H, Vattulainen I, Vidal-Puig A, Oresic M. Association of lipidome remodeling in the adipocyte membrane with acquired obesity in humans. PloS Biol 2011, accepted.
- Tyynismaa H, Raivio T, Hakkarainen A, Ortega-Alonso A, Lundbom N, Kaprio J, Rissanen A, Suomalainen A, Pietiläinen KH. Liver fat but not other adiposity measures influence circulating FGF21 levels in healthy young adult twins. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2011 Feb;96(2):E351-5.
- Naukkarinen J, Surakka I, Pietiläinen KH, Rissanen A, Salomaa V, Ripatti S, Yki-Järvinen H, van Duijn CM, Wichmann HE, Kaprio J, Taskinen MR, Peltonen on behalf of the ENGAGE Consortium. Use of genome-wide expression data to mine the "gray zone" of GWA studies leads to novel candidate obesity genes. PLoS Genet 2010 Jun 3;6(6):e1000976.
- Mirtti T, Laine VJO, Hiekkanen H, Hurme S, Rowe O, Nevalainen TJ, Kallajoki M, Alanen K: Group IIA Phospholipase A2 as a Prognostic Marker in Prostate Cancer: Relevance to Clinicopathological Variables and Disease-specific Mortality. APMIS 2009; 117(3): 151-61.
- Gupta S , Iljin K, Sara H, Mpindi J-P, Mirtti T, Vainio P, Rantala J, Alanen K, Nees M, Kallioniemi O: FZD4 as a mediator of ERG oncogene-induced WNT signaling and epithelial-to- mesenchymal transition in human prostate cancer cells. Cancer Res. 2010 Sep 1;70(17):6735-45
- Paula Vainio, Santosh Gupta, Kirsi Ketola, Tuomas Mirtti, John-Patrick Mpindi, Pekka Kohonen, Vidal Fey, Merja Perälä, Frank Smit, Gerald Verhaegh, Jack Schalken, Kalle Alanen, Olli Kallioniemi and Kristiina Iljin: Arachidonic acid pathway members PLA2G7, HPGD, EPHX2 and CYP4F8 identified as putative novel therapeutic targets in prostate cancer. Am J Pathol. 2011 Feb;178(2):525-36
- Stenman J*, Paju A*, Rissanen O, Tenkanen T, Haglund C, Stenman U-H, and Orpana A. Targeted gene-expression analysis by genome-controlled RT-PCR. *Equal contribution. Clin Chem. 2006;52(11):1988-96.
Patents and patent applications:
- Stenman J, Orpana A. Method, instrument and computer program product for quantification of PCR products. FI 20095514. In PCT phase.
- Stenman J, Paju A, Rissanen O and Orpana A. Method for quantitative and/or comparative measurement of mRNA expression levels in small biological samples. WO2005116248. Granted in EPO, US and Australia, pending in CA and JP.