Anu Suomalainen

Anu Suomalainen (Wartiovaara) completed her MD degree in 1991, and in 1993 defended her PhD thesis on mitochondrial DNA mutations in diseases, at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She relocated to McGill University in 1998, and returned to Finland in 2001. Her research group has been established in BiomedicumHelsinki since 2001, and belongs to the FinMIT Centre of Excellence of the Academy of Finland on mitochondrial biogenesis and disease. From 2007 she has been Sigrid Jusélius Professor of Clinical Molecular Medicine. Her work has been recognized with international awards, including Anders Jahre and Europe et Medicin prizes, and she is an EMBO member. Since the 1990s she has been a pioneer in the field of nuclear control of mtDNA maintenance, and the genetics of mitochondrial disorders. The major focus of her research group is to discover molecular mechanisms underlying primary and secondary mitochondrial dysfunction in disease, develop models for these disorders and to utilize physiological knowledge from the models to develop therapies for the currently incurable mitochondrial disorders.