Funding decisions

This spring has been confusing what comes to the feedback of my research proposals and gained/rejected funding. From all the applications that I sent after last August (2019) to the national foundations and organizations, and which have been decided to date, I received only 17% of the applied funding. So I was lucky to gain the grans from Magnus Ehnroth's Foundation as well as from Sigrid Juselius Foundation. I and my group are really thankful for this support! This will keep us going and our research not falling down. 

The biggest disappointment for me was my failure in the Academy of Finland's Project Funding. I know that I had a tough task to down-grade my proposal that I have been advanced twice to be interviewed in the European Research Council (ERC) as a Starting Grant candidate (but not received the funding). So, it wasn't surprising to me that the feedback from the Academy of Finland from the same but down-graded proposal was that it was too ambitious. But still, it left me thinking that is it really actually a fault not to be funded? How can we ever achieve anything new in science if we don't even try? And according to the feedback, it wasn't about the feasibility of my proposal, I've got a feeling that it was, like it is most of the time for so many of us, not fully understood and the reviewer just simply didn't believe in the concept, as it wasn't familiar to her/him beforehand. At least I think at this time I didn't get really constructive feedback by which I could actually improve my application. So after all, I thought to continue to believe in me and my visions and keep on going. After all, I was able to convince 29% of the national foundations to which I have sent my proposals. Of course, next September I need to clarify my proposal and convince the reviewers in the next Academy of Finland's call. The trickiest part, I guess, is to adjust the proposal to the level of the possible reviewers, and this year I clearly failed, I forgot that ERC-reviewer is quite far away from an Academy of Finland's reviewer. A lesson that I learned in a hard way. But hey, no worries, I've still got an ERC-consolidator grant under evaluation in the first step. Let's see what is the feedback this time when I'm competing at the next level. And all my wonderful Ph.D. students are applying personal funds too. 

Congratulates Juulia and Katy, for the grants of Finnish Pharmaceutical Society!

LAT1-Utilizing Prodrugs of Ketoprofen Can Efficiently Reduce Brain Prostaglandin Levels

Congratulations to the team for a new publication, corresponded by the Ph.D. student Ahmed Montaser! Great job with a difficult task! Meaning that we had a nice study with our brain-targeted prodrug of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), ketoprofen, that we have previously demonstrated to utilize L-type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) at the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and brain parenchymal cells. This has improved the delivery of ketoprofen into the site of action, where cyclooxygenase (COX) enzymes are located in the brain. So this was expected to decrease the prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) production in the brain after inflammation induction. However, the doses that were given were so high that no significant difference was observed between the ketoprofen and the prodrug groups. However, the results showed that prodrug was efficiently delivered into the brain parenchymal cells and that the release of ketoprofen was just slow, giving an extended-release profile to the prodrug. Together with lower systemic and hepatic exposure compared to ketoprofen itself, this prodrug can be considered as an efficient tool to study chronic administration of ketoprofen (in its LAT1-utilizing prodrug form) in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases while avoiding their peripheral adverse effects.

Nevertheless, Ahmed wrote a nice story from the results and above all, he was able to develop our methodology for the future. For example, now on we don't have to buy expensive COX-activity assay kits, instead, we can isolate the enzyme from the cells and do the assay using arachidonic acid as an original electron donor (via prostaglandin G2, PGG2) to oxidize Amplex Red to resorufin in the presence of hemin. If COX inhibitor, such as ketoprofen is added, then this reaction slows down. We also have now a really specific liquid chromatography-tandem mass (LC-MS/MS) method for PGE2 quantification, thanks to another Ph.D. student Janne Tampio! More about this method will be published later on, in his publications.

The publication was published in Pharmaceuticals and it is open access, so you can read more about that study from the following link: (click-me)

Unusual science blog

So here we go, I'm going to try something that I have thought about several years now, writing a blog of my work, my science, and the research of my group. Why I love it so much and why it keeps in waking up every morning, but at the same time why it worries me so much, how on earth I'm able to guarantee the living to all my group members and is it even possible to combine a decent motherhood and family life with a scientific career. Well, the main aim is, of course, to open up what the everyday research is for a general audience.

I used to have my group's website at www.uef.fi/dt, but they will expire soon, since UEF has decided to renew their websites, and at the same time cut down the amount of independent research sites. All the research done at the UEF will be found from a database called UEF Connet. However, I found it insufficient to present all my scientific work. Therefore, all the contents of my old websites are now collected to the sites found on the righthand bar, and now on I will focus on writing the posts that will show how everything proceeds in a science and academic world.

Let's see how it all turns out to be... Welcome to travel and learn with me!