Drug development
and diagnostics

Research Group:
Skin cancer and proteinase research group

Veli-Matti Kähäri
veli-matti.kahari[at]utu.fi

Department of Clinical Medicine,
University of Turku

Veli-Matti Kähäri

Basic research, Biomarker, Clinical Medicine, Data mining, Diagnostics, Disease models, Drug target, In Vivo Diagnostics, Melanoma, Molecular Cell Biology, Molecular diagnostics, Next-generation sequencing, Nucleic acids, Pathology, Personalized medicine, Receptor, Signaling, Skin diseases, Squamous cell carcinoma, Target discovery

Auria Biobank is a hospital integrated clinical biobank operating in Turku. It is jointly owned by University of Turku and Hospital districts of Southwest Finland, Satakunta and Vaasa. The catchment population is the area is approximately 900 000 people. Auria biobank was authorized to operate in March 2014. The aim of Auria is to provide a research infrastructure for both academic investigators and for company R&D. Auria has ongoing biobank projects with most big Pharma companies as well as academic research groups.

Biobank research plays a key role, for example in promoting personalized medicine, understanding the underlying diseases, and examining the effectiveness of therapies. The results from biobank studies will return to the biobank to add value to samples and to be used in new studies.

Auria has a collection of over one million FFPE tissue samples and ongoing collection of tissue and blood samples. Clinical data generated as part of the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of the patients is obtained from the hospital’s electronic health record systems and can be linked to the samples. Clinical data is stored in the biobank sample and data register in an encoded anonymized manner, which protects the privacy of the sample donors while making it possible to link the data from all sources to individual patients.

Auria Biobank

Basic research, Target discovery

Medical Bioinformatics Centre focuses on the analysis of high-throughput data produced by modern biotechnologies, such as next-generation sequencing and mass spectrometry. The Unit has strong expertise in analysing and interpreting molecular data and it constantly strives for developing new data analysis methods and workflows to support cutting edge research in biology and medicine.  

A specific focus of the research at the Unit is on biomedical applications in close collaboration with experimental and clinical groups. The ultimate goal is to improve the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of complex diseases, such as diabetes and cancer, by combining computational, experimental and clinical expertise.

Medical Bioinformatics Centre provides support and services for the analysis of genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics and proteomics data. The personnel of the Unit consist of more than 20 specialists with expertise in the various fields of bioinformatics and computational biology. 

Our services

• Experimental design consultation
• Data analysis of various data types produced by high-throughput biotechnology instruments (e.g. microarrays, next-generation sequencing, mass spectrometry)

Data analysis service package

• Support for experimental design
• Data analysis with state-of-the-art bioinformatics software and in-house tools, including preprocessing, quality assessment, statistical analysis, functional/pathway analysis, and result visualization
• Results with comprehensive analysis report
• Result meeting
• Submission of data to public repository

Medical Bioinformatics Centre

Basic research, Biomarker, Data mining, Genomics, Hit to lead, Machine learning, Molecular diagnostics, Next-generation sequencing, Pattern recognition, Personalized medicine, Proteomics, Target discovery

The Cell Imaging and Cytometry (CIC) is a centralized facility where end users receive the support needed to carry out conventional and advanced imaging and flow cytometry techniques. The unit provides state-of-the-art equipment covering a broad range of live-cell and fixed sample imaging modalities starting from basic widefield microscopy to fluorescence lifetime, super resolution confocal and total internal reflection microscopy. CIC flow cytometry provides cell sorting as a service and maintains analyzers capable of separating up to 17 colours for hands-on use. Users receive one-to-one training from our experienced technical engineers who are available for consultation throughout all steps of the project. CIC is part of the Biocenter Finland Infrastructure Network on Biological Imaging. We cooperate with Turku Bioimaging and EuroBioImaging to improve the accessibility of imaging technologies among the bioscience community.

Contact

Email:   masscytometry[at]bioscience.fi     microscopy[at]bioscience.fi     flow[at]bioscience.fi

Phone:  Microscopy:  +358 (0)50 369 7532
               Flow cytometry: +358 (0)50 365 1598

Web:      Cell Imaging and Cytometry

Atomic-force microscopy, Basic research, Disease models, Drug target, Imaging, Imaging software, Nanoparticles, Screening, Signaling, Super-resolution imaging, Target discovery

Finnish Functional Genomics Centre (FFGC) is part of the national Biocenter Finland infrastructure and an open-access core facility that supports high level research by offering a full range of services with the latest cutting research technologies and instruments. Among the key applications available are genome-wide or targeted analysis of genomes, epigenomes, transcriptomes and metagenomes. You are welcome to contact us for consultation and to enquire about our services: ffgc[at]utu.fi.

FFGC

Basic research, Genomics, Next-generation sequencing, Target discovery

The Instrument Centre serves as a shared facility for University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University. With five modern NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) instruments and a sophisticated mass spectrometer, the Centre is one of the best equipped educational NMR/MS facilities in Finland. Our main focus is in NMR spectroscopy and for the applications we have 400, 3 x 500 and 600 MHz Bruker Avance III spectrometers. The instrumentation was completely updated during 2016. Two of the instruments are equipped with Prodigy cryoprobe systems to enhance the sensitivity of the measurements significantly. In addition, our 400 MHz instrument is equipped with two solid state probes which enable the experiments with solid (CP-MAS) and semisolid (HR-MAS) materials. Three instruments are situated in building Arcanum (UTU) and two in Axelia (ÅAU).

Our own research covers all aspects of NMR applications. However, the main focus is on NMR metabolomics research of biological samples. The Instrument Centre offers also services for non-academic users. For more information, please visit at our webpage: instrumentcentre.utu.fi.

Basic research, Hit to lead, Lead optimization, Metabolomics, NMR, Preclinical development