New Semester, New Students in House

So the spring semester has officially started and we have also gained new students, Madalena and Mafalda from the University of Lisbon. Madalena will work with our PP2A-activators and their prodrugs project and Mafalda with our carnitine prodrugs. Both will work with HPLC method development, bioconversion and cellular uptake studies. Not easy compounds to work with, but I'm sure, as a fifth gradue student, they will do fine! 😎 Also, Simone from Rome will continue with the synthesis of OATP-selective prodrugs, and Juuso, our M.Sc. student with modelling of CAT1 transporter and synthesizing suitable prodrugs towards it. There have been also other requests for the later spring time, let's see who else we will host and from where... 😂

 

SBBN 2025 Meeting in Uppsala

It was again that time of the year that we were having the Scandinavian Blood-brain Barrier Network (SBBN) meeting again, this time in Uppsala, Sweden. Roughly over 100 participants, 10 excellent speakers and over 10 interesting poster presentations, and all in one day! This time, Janne and Adela accompanied me, and we also had Prof. Annakaisa Haapasalo from UEF and Dr. Heidi Kidron from the University of Helsinki as speakers and Finnish representatives in Uppsala. Next time we will meet in Copenhagen, 16th of January, 2026 (so save the date) and under a slightly changed name "Nordic Brain Barrier Netwook (NBBN)"!

Science Forum 2025

Last week was the national Science Forum week in several university cities in Finland (link). Like mentioned in the previous post, I was also invited to have a public lecture on "Drug Delivery - Achievements and Future Challenges" at Kuopio Museum. I must admit that having a public lecture in Finnish is  much harder than in English and yes, I did struggled with basic concepts like explaining what prodrugs are. 😂 Well, I was a bit nervous, as I saw my audience, the median age was much higher than I expected. 😁 Anyway, good practise once again as I'm not that strong presenter. I think we, as a School of Pharmacy did a really great job - translating the sience to the wider audience, as my colleagues Prof. Antti Poso and Dr. Piia Bartos also presented how molecular modelling can be utilized in personalized medicine and Prof. Katri Hämeen-Anttila talked about the pros an cons of bringing self-medications to the common supermarkets. I also learned, once again, a valuable lesson what the public audience can handle and what topics should be avoided.

Next week, me Janne and Adela are heading to Uppsala for the 7th Scandinavian Blood-brain Barrier (SBBN) Meeting.

New Year - New Beginnigs

The year 2025 has now officially started. Even though the end of the year 2024 was a bit hectic, I'm eagerly waiting for this year and what all it will bring to us. So many things to expect, so many thing to be achieved! 💚 And since we all have worked so hard for the last year and overcome so many unexpected drawbacks, I'm really expecting a pure sunshine and happiness to all of our group members!

So at this point, I would like to thank you all who have contributed to our success and if you are interested, available and do understand Finnish, there will be a public lecture on Drug Delivery (among other topics) in the Science Forum next Saturday 11st of January in Kuopio Museum cafe, more information behind this link (in Finnish). 

Thank you also for all the great gifts that I have received from you during the year, it always amazes me a bit what a great cooks our research group is full of! 😄