Prof. Riitta Lahesmaa, MD, PhD: “Molecular mechanisms of human Th cell differentiation”

Thursday, October 5, 2017, 03.30 pm, Hygiene Institute, Lecture Hall 2, Kinderspitalgasse 15, Vienna IX

COLLOQUIUM IN PATHOPHYSIOLOGY, INFECTIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY

» Invitation

Riitta Lahesmaa, academy professor, M.D., Ph.D., is the Director of Turku Centre for Biotechnology, Turku, Finland since 1998, currently on leave of absence 2016-2020 during her Academy professorship. She is the Director of BioCity Turku Centre for Life Span Research and Vice Director of Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in Molecular Systems Immunology and Physiology.

Dr. Lahesmaa was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University Medical Center 1990-1993 and a Principal Scientist at Roche Bioscience in Palo Alto, California 1993-1998. She was a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School in 2009 and at Stanford University and UCSF 2014-16.

She founded and directed Turku Centre for Systems Biology 2000-2015. Dr. Lahesmaa's research is focused on molecular systems immunology and stem cell biology and aims at understanding molecular mechanisms of type 1 diabetes and other human immune mediated diseases. Her studies have resulted in the identification of novel molecular mechanisms and new regulators of T cell functions. Dr. Lahesmaa also aims at understanding the early immune response in children who develop type 1 diabetes to identify new biomarkers to improve predicting, monitoring, and early diagnosis of beginning of the disease process.

She has published > 200 original papers and reviews. She has been since 2012 an elected member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.

Selected Publications:

• Tripathi SK, Chen Z, Larjo A, Kanduri K, Nousiainen K, Äijo T, Ricaño-Ponce I, Hrdlickova B, Tuomela S, Laajala E, Salo V, Vinod Kumar V, Wijmenga C, Lähdesmäki H, Lahesmaa R. Genome-wide analysis of STAT3 mediated transcription during early human Th17 cell differentiation. Cell Reports 19:1888-1901, 2017.
• Tuomela S, Rautio S, Ahlfors H, Öling V, Salo V, Ullah U, Chen Z, Hämälistö S, Tripathi SK, Äijö T, Rasool O, Soueidan H, Wessels L, Stockinger B, Lähdesmäki H, Lahesmaa R. Comparative analysis of human and mouse transcriptomes of Th17 cell priming. Oncotarget. 7:13416-28, 2016.
• Kanduri K, Tripathi S, Larjo A, Mannerström H, Ullah U, Lund R, Hawkins RD, Ren B, Lähdesmäki H, Lahesmaa R. Identification of global regulators of T-helper cell lineage specification. Genome Med. 7:122, 2015.
• Kallionpää H, Elo LL, Laajala E, Mykkänen J, Ricaño-Ponce I, Vaarma M, Laajala TD, Hyöty H, Ilonen J, Veijola R, Simell T, Wijmenga C, Knip M, Lähdesmäki H, Simell O, Lahesmaa R. Innate immune activity is detected prior to seroconversion in children with HLA-conferred type 1 diabetes susceptibility. Diabetes. 63: 2402-2414, 2014.
• Hawkins RD, Larjo A, Tripathi SK, Wagner U, Luu Y, Lönnberg T, Raghav SK, Lee LK, Lund R, Ren B, Lähdesmäki H, Lahesmaa R. Global Chromatin State Analysis Reveals Lineage-Specific Enhancers during the Initiation of Human T helper 1 and T helper 2 Cell Polarization. Immunity. 38: 1271-1284, 2013.  

Host: Hannes Stockinger