Are we a Breeder's Club?

It is always nice to hear to which positions your previous students are settling in after their graduation, but sometimes it's hard to keep the record. Of course, today it is much more easier, thanks to LinkedIn, Facebook etc. But frankly speaking, I don't have time to look after every individual or organize real alumni activities. Anyway, I've got recently nice news; 2 of my last year's (2020) graduated M.Sc. students are currently working in the biggest Finnish pharmaceutical company called Orion Pharma. Which left me thinking, have I and my group become as a breeding club for Orion Pharma? 😀 And perhaps, they should sponsor our research activities a bit more? 😂 

Thank you Sania and good luck for the future!

There has been so many things going on that I haven't had time yet to post our farewells for Sania, the ERASMUS-student from Bradford University! Sania worked in one of our cancer-targeted drug delivery projects, in which we try to improve the delivery of well-known anti-cancer agent temozolomide into the brain and brain tumors, which would then improve the effects selectively in tumor cells, and thus be less toxic to healthy cells. Sania did marvellous work in the project during the past 2 months and we received such great results that I finally think we can soon put all of this into a publication! 

But that's not all, so far also one UEF M.Sc. student, Mira has also started her topic with metformin prodrugs and two ERASMUS-students, Irene and Sara from the University of Valencia (Spain), who will work with ganciclovir prodrugs that they will firstly synthesize during the autumn semester and then secondly evaluate their pharmaceutical properties during the spring sememster. In addition, currently also other ERASMUS-students, Adela from Charles University (Czech Republic) working with placental proteomics and Soumeya from University of Lyon (France) working with prostaglandin/reactive oxygen species analytics have also started to work in our group. And at least one more UEF M.Sc. student is starting withnin few weeks...

 

 So, a lot going on this autumn, and I'm looking forward, what all we can achieve together! 😀

Thank you Jane & Aatos Erkko Foundation!

So, now it is finally official, I received a 2-years' proof-of-concept funding from Jane & Aatos Erkko Foundation! Thank you for that! The project will be, as one can guess, a brand new and relating to a new transporter discovery to increase brain drug delivery and targeting specifically into the neurons. Of course at this point, when we are in the very fragile phase of the study, I cannot reveal too much details, but I hope I will post our progress in this forum soon!

Link for the official website and grant receivers

Ph.D. positions with funding!

What a week! 2 of my Ph.D. students have received our university's graduate school position, meaning funding for Johanna for 9 months and for Janne for 24 months! So congratulations Johanna and Janne! It was more than I could ever imagine from all the months that were given by Doctoral Progamme of Drug Research committee! For this great news we had some wine and chocolate today afternoon in our coffee room!

During the week, I also received other good news, we got an Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI) fellowship to a possible Ph.D. candidate that I interviewed in the beginning of this summer. Unfortunately he received another Ph.D. position in another European country, and thus, he is not joining our team now. But I also received some other good news today, which I will make more official a bit later. It will help to increase the team and our science in the future! 😀