Scientific Committee Members

The Scientific Committee establishes and oversees the various working groups within the project and advises the Scientific Director. The Scientific Committee is composed of the Scientific Director, working group leaders and scientific representatives appointed by the University of Helsinki, biobanks and pharma partners.

MEMBERS OF THE SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Chair: Aarno Palotie, Professor, Research Director, FIMM

Arctic Biobank: Minna Ruddock, Research Director, University of Oulu and Director of the Arctic Biobank

Auria Biobank: Johanna Schleutker, Professor, Institute of Biomedicine, PhD, Professor of Medical Genetics, University of Turku

Borealis Biobank: Johannes Kettunen, PhD, Professor, Genetics and biostatistics, University of Oulu

Central Finland Biobank: Jari Laukkanen, Cardiologist, Head of the Department, Central Finland Health Care District, KSSHP

Eastern Finland Biobank: Arto Mannermaa, Professor, School of Medicine, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Eastern Finland

FinBB: Johanna Mäkelä, Director of Research and Services, FinBB

Finnish Red Cross Blood Service: Mikko Arvas, Blood donor research lead and a bioinformatician, Finnish Red Cross Bloodservice

HUS: Olli Carpen, Professor, Department of Pathology, University of Helsinki

Tampere Biobank: Katriina Aalto-Setälä, Professor, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, BioMediTech, Tampere University

THL Biobank: Markus Perola, Research Professor, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare

University of Helsinki: Samuli Ripatti, Professor, Director, FIMM

Abbvie: Bridget Riley-Gills, Principal Research Scientist

Astra Zeneca: Ioanna Tachmazidou, Principal Data Scientist, Statistical Genetics

Biogen: Chia-Yen Chen, Genetic epidemiologist , Associate Scientific Director

BMS: Shameek Biswas, Senior Director

Boehringer Ingelheim: Zhihao Ding, Director and Head of Human Genetics

Genentech: Rion Pendergrass, Principle Scientific Manager

GSK: Meg Ehm, Director of Genetics

Janssen Biotech: Dawn Waterworth, Senior Director

Maze Therapeutics: Robert Graham,

Merck: Neha Raghavan, Associate Principal Scientist

Novartis: Nicole Renaud, Co-lead of Human Genetics & Targets, Discovery Sciences

Pfizer: Anders Malarstig, Senior Director

Sanofi: Katherine Klinger, Sr. Vice President Genetics and Genomics and Presidential Fellow

FinnGen in brief

FinnGen is a large public-private partnership aiming to collect and analyse genome and health data from 500,000 Finnish biobank participants. FinnGen aims on one hand to provide novel medically and therapeutically relevant insights but also construct a world-class resource that can be applied for future studies.

FinnGen is one of the very first personalized medicine projects at this scale and the public-private collaborative nature of the project is exceptional compared to many ongoing studies. FinnGen brings together Finnish universities, hospitals and hospital districts, THL, Blood Service, biobanks, FINBB and international pharmaceutical companies and hundreds of thousands of Finns. Because collaboration is the key to achieving breakthroughs in disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, we welcome everyone on this journey into our shared heritage.