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News

Some of our highlights are listed here -check out more of our news at LinkedIn

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Sonja Koivukoski and Hesam Hakimnejad presented their work on virtual staining of tissue histology as talks at European Conference on Digital pathology – ECDP2025
28.6.2025

We are joined by two new members in the lab! Deniz Yıldırım joined us for an Erasmus+ exchange for his M.D., and Nathaniel Tetteh is starting his Master’s thesis work. Welcome!
23.6.2025

Erika Aikio is attending the Conference of the European Proteomics Association EuPa 2025 presenting a poster on her work on proteomic analysis of prostate cancer cell drug responses.
16.6.2025

Petra Taka-Eilola and Heshani Jayasuriya Arachchige Dona successfully competed their Master’s theses projects in the lab and graduated with great grades – Congratulations!
15.6.2025

Leena Latonen presented our virtual staining projects and results at the 4th Bioimage Informatics Finland Network Symposium.
22.5.2025

All our Ph.D. students Sonja Koivukoski, Minttu Kärkkäinen, Erika Aikio, and Hanqing Xia are presenting their work at the Faculty of Health Sciences Doctoral Researcher Symposium at University of Eastern Finland on 19-21 May 2025.
19.5.2025

Congratulations to Sonja Koivukoski and Minttu Kärkkäinen for grants for their Ph.D. research from the Finnish Cultural Foundation North Savonia Fund!
17.5.2025

Leena Latonen is giving an opening keynote at the FIMM – Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland Scientific Retreat 2025 – Building Bridges Across Disciplines, discussing the possibilities and challenges of AI in biomedicine.
15.5.2025

The European Society of Digital and Integrative Pathology – ESDIP is introducing the Carousel Scientific Series it’s LinkedIn, and we have the honour to be the first ones with the groups of Pekka Ruusuvuori and Sara Oliveira to present our insight on how virtual staining can transform histopathology in the “From chemical to virtual staining”.
12.5.2025

Our collaborator pathologist Sandra Pouplier from University of Copenhagen is visiting us in Finland this week! Sandra will give a talk about Tumor infiltrating lymphocytes in ER+HER2 breast cancer.
24.3.2025

We have research visitors for week 12! Hesam Hakimnejad and Hayder Abbas from Pekka Ruusuvuori group in Turku University are joining our lab to get introduced to histological labwork – the origins of the whole slide images that these guys are using for their computational work in our interdisciplinary collaboration projects. Exciting!
17.3.2025

Congratulations to Erika Aikio for receiving a grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation for her Ph.D. research on multi-omics of prostate cancer drug responses!
28.2.2025

Enkhzaya Batnasan, M.D., Ph.D., is giving a talk at the International Day of Women and Girls in science 2025 at Snellmania, University of Eastern Finland, sharing her insights springing from her highly international career path.
11.2.2025

Leena Latonen is travelling to Oslo to act as an opponent at NCMBM – Norwegian Centre for Molecular Biosciences and Medicine for Haifeng Xu defending his Ph.D. work “Prediction of clinical outcomes for precision oncology using multi-omics data and machine learning” from Tero Aittokallio group.
10.2.2025

Leena Latonen is travelling to Stockholm at Karolinska Institute to act in the examining committee for Eduard Chelebian defending his Ph.D. work “Representation Learning for
Computational Pathology and Spatial Omics” from Carolina Wählby group.
24.1.2025

Leena Latonen is attending the Nordic Breast Pathology Symposium 2025 in Stockholm 20.-21.1.2025.
20.1.2025

Research Day of Institute of Biomedicine is arranged 13.12.2024 in Snellmania at University of Eastern Finland. Our labs talk this year is given by postdoc Annika Kohvakka of her project about the role of non-coding RNA EPCART in prostate cancer.
13.12.2024

We, as part of the CANCER RC at UEF, received the Communicator of the Year Award at University of Eastern Finland for our CANCER RC in recognition of the research community’s active and diverse communication of its research findings and research activities. The announcement from the university mentioned that: “Thanks to their consistent communication efforts, several research groups within CANCER RC have contributed to the university’s visibility while also raising awareness of cancer research among the public”. Such a nice reward and recognition!
12.12.2024

Congratulations to Sonja Koivukoski and Minttu Kärkkäinen for receiving grants for their PhD research from the Cancer Society of North Savo – Savon Syöpärahasto! Sonja tests feasibility of AI-based virtual staining for histopathological analysis of breast cancer, and Minttu investigates the role of nuclear stress response pathways for drug responses of cancer cells. Both lines of investigation pave way for improved cancer diagnostics and therapies in the future.
12/2024

We are so very greatful for receiving funding from Cancer Foundation Finland for the next two years! With this support, we study RNA regulation routes in cancer with aims to pinpoint targetable mechanisms for future treatment options.
11/2024

Leena Latonen is giving a talk at the The Nordic Computational Biology Conference in Helsinki 7.-8.11.2024.
7.11.2024

Leena Latonen is attending 6th Eurasia Biochemical Approaches & Technologies EBAT Congress 24.-27.10.2024 in Tokat, turkey, giving and invited talk of our proteomics research for prostate cancer drug vulnerabilities.
24.10.2024

University of Eastern Finland made a news piece about our Cancer symposium: AI has become a cornerstone of cancer research
8.10.2024

Finnish Cancer Institute has published photos of our symposium!
10/2024

We are organizing the largest Cancer Symposium in Finland this year! Leena Latonen as the chair of organizing committee and together with the Finnish Cancer Institute, we are hosting 240 participants at the Kuopio City Theater for the 16th Symposium of the Finnish Cancer Institute on 26.-27.9.2024! The whole group will be there, presenting posters and giving talks!
26.9.2024

Minttu Kärkkäinen takes part in EMBO|FEBS Lecture Course Molecular mechanisms in signal transduction and cancer on 18 – 26 August 2024 in Spetses, Greece, presenting also her work on effects of drug induced stress responses on nuclear organelles in prostate cancer cells.
18.8.2024

The publication of histology image registration challenge from ABCAP consortium is out! Wanna know how to align multiple histological images of the same samples? See the paper published in the distinguished journal Medical Image Analysis:
The ACROBAT 2022 challenge: Automatic registration of breast cancer tissue
14.7.2024

Our tests for using Virtual Reality in teaching 3D histology are continuing, this time at University of Turku. See the news piece (in Finnish) here:
Virtuaalitodellisuus biolääketieteen opetuksen apuna | Turun yliopisto (utu.fi)
28.6.2024

We wrote about the future prospects and sustainability in histopathology through AI-based virtual staining to Duodecim, the main journal of medical professionals in Finnish:
Virtuaalivärjäys mahdollistaa ympäristöystävällisempää histologiaa kemikaaleja vähentämällä (duodecimlehti.fi)
14.6.2024

Sonja Koivukoski is presenting her work on virtual HE-staining of breast cancer whole slide images as a talk at European Conference on Digital pathology – ECDP2024
European Society of Digital and Integrative Pathology | ECDP2024 | 20th European Congress on Digital Pathology 2024
6.6.2024

A PhD dissertation was successfully defended by Annika Kohvakka of lncRNAs in prostate cancer. Congratulations!!
See the news piece (in Finnish) here:
Annika Kohvakka: LncRNA-molekyylit auttavat tunnistamaan aggressiiviset eturauhassyövät | Tampereen korkeakouluyhteisö (tuni.fi)
24.5.2024

Minttu Kärkkäinen, a graduate student in the lab, just received a 2-year grant for her PhD studies from the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Congratulations!!
Myönnetyt apurahat | Suomen Kulttuurirahasto (skr.fi)
16.5.2024

The abstract deadline for the Finnish Cancer Institute Symposium is approaching! Visit the symposium web page to submit your abstract in time for this major cancer research event of the year:
fcisymposium2024Kuopio
12.5.2024

Leena Latonen is presenting our work at AACR Annual Meeting 2024 in San Diego
AACR Annual Meeting 2024 | Meetings | AACR
9.4.2024

Leena and Sonja are giving talks at the 50th Anniversary Seminar of the Finnish Association for Cell Biology at University of Jyväskylä. Talk topics in how AI can help cell biology in research and clinics, and virtual staining in histology!
15.3.2024

Our review article of Virtual staining in histology is out!
Virtual staining for histology by deep learning – ScienceDirect
14.3.2024

Leena wrote a piece about the role of RNA binding proteins in cancer drug resistance to Duodecim (in Finnish), which is now out:
RNA:han sitoutuvat proteiinit syövän lääkehoidossa ja -resistenssissä (duodecimlehti.fi)
2.3.2024

We are testing Virtual Reality in teaching histology and 3D tissue features to biomedical students. Check out a newspiece in Finnish:
Biolääketieteen opetuksessa testattiin virtuaalista syöpäkasvainta | Itä-Suomen yliopisto (uef.fi)
13.2.2024

Our article on heterogeneity in prostate cancer cell responses to platinum drugs is out! Check:
Platinum-based drugs induce phenotypic alterations in nucleoli and Cajal bodies in prostate cancer cells | Cancer Cell International (springer.com)
15.1.2024