MIST Summer day on 13 August 2026 at Kylämäki Village in Kurala

Program:

9.30-9.45 Welcome remarks and housekeeping announcements
9.45-10.45 Keynote talk
     • Associate Professor Carsten Daub, Karolinska Institute

     • Title: Spatial Biology in Sharp Focus: Advanced Computational Technologies for Mapping the Cancer Regulatory Landscape

10.45-11.00 Stretch break

11.00-11.40 Session 1: talks from MIST groups
     • 11.00-11.10 Elo
     • 11.10-11.20 Airas
     • 11.20-11.30 Figueiredo

     • 11.30- 11.40 Hollmén

11.40-13.00 Lunch, interactions and posters

13.00-13.40 Session 2: talks from MIST groups
     • 13.00-13.10 Lönnberg
     • 13.10-13.20 Lahesmaa
     • 13.20-13.30 Mildner

     • 13.30-13.40 Närvä

13.40-14.10 Coffee break, interactions and posters

14.10-14.50 Session 3: talks from MIST groups
     • 14.00-14.10 Mattila
     • 14.10-14.20 Hänninen
     • 14.20-14.30 Nuutila
     • 14.30-14.40 Takeda
14.50-15.00 Closing words

Feel free to continue the conversations or take a walk in the Kurala milieu to end the day.

Posters: Rantakari, Roivainen, Julkunen, Virtanen, Orešič, Ruusuvuori, Hämälistö, Li and Laitinen groups

MIST Guest Seminar

Time and place: 14^th August, 2026 at 11:00 in Alhopuro auditorium, Medisiina D

Speaker: Associate Professor Carsten Daub, Karolinska Institute, Sweden

Topic: How to formulate Best Practices for using LLMs in our research

Host: Lea Mikkola (lea.mikkola@utu.fi)

Coffee and bun served at 10:30

Eight researchers at any stage are welcome to have lunch and discuss with Associate Prof. Daub after the seminar. If you wish to share a lunch with the speaker, please contact Lea Mikkola (lea.mikkola@utu.fi).

Everyone is welcome to listen to the seminar!

About the speaker

Carsten Daub (he/him) is an Associate Professor (Docent) and Group Leader of the Clinical Transcriptomics group at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Medicine Huddinge. Holding an M.Sc. in Chemistry (TU Berlin) and a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics (Max Planck Institute, Golm), he completed postdoctoral work at Karolinska Institutet before serving as a Team Leader and Bioinformatics Core Facility Director at RIKEN in Yokohama. In 2012, he returned to Karolinska Institutet to establish his current research group across the Flemingsberg and SciLifeLab (Solna) campuses. Working closely with Karolinska Hospital clinicians, his group leverages clinical samples, high-throughput sequencing, and bioinformatics to decipher the gene regulatory mechanisms, enhancers, non-coding RNAs, and transcription factors driving human disease.

Selected publications:

• Impact of single-cell RNA reference selection for the deconvolution of breast cancer spatial transcriptomics datasets. LInk: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.09.698566v1.full
• Identification and transfer of spatial transcriptomics signatures for cancer diagnosis
  Breast Cancer Res. 2020 Jan 13;22(1):6. doi: 10.1186/s13058-019-1242-9. Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31931856

Past Events

’Macrophage Plasticity: Shapeshifting Heroes or Still Villains?’

• Burkhard Becher is an immunologist at the Institute of Experimental Immunology, University of Zurich, Switzerland. His research focuses on immunotherapy and cytokine communication networks during inflammation. Research group website: https://www.usz.ch/en/department/comprehensive-cancer-center-zuerich/research/research-programs-groups/tumor-immunology-program/research-group-burkhard-becher/

• Steffen Jung is a Professor at the Department of Immunology, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel. His current research focuses on understanding mononuclear phagocytes, including monocytes, DCs, and macrophages. Research group website: https://www.weizmann.ac.il/dept/irb/jung/
  
• Ari Waisman is a Professor and Director at the University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Institute for Molecular Medicine, Mainz, Germany. His research focus is the molecular mechanisms leading to autoimmune inflammation with a focus on IL17 function. Homepage: https://www.imb.de/students-postdocs/international-phd-programme/ipp-groups/ari-waisman
  
  The event is organized by Biocity Turku Research Program MIST: The Multiverse of Immune System and InFLAMES, the joint research flagship of University of Turku and Åbo Akademi.

Science and More: A Chat with Steffen Jung, Burkhard Becher, and Ari Waisman, Oct 8

Day: Tuesday, 8 October, 2024

Time: 13-15 ( or 1 pm to 3 pm, if it makes more sense)

Venue: MediCity seminar room ( The big black building called Biocity, 4th floor, A-side, Tykistökatu 6A)

Registration: https://konsta.utu.fi/Default.aspx?tabid=88&tap=19929 (Closes on October 3)

A super informal (but still cool) meeting with three amazing scientists: Steffen Jung, Burkhard Becher, and Ari Waisman. It’s going to be an open chat about all sorts of science stuff, like:

• How on earth do you survive in science?
• What’s the secret sauce for PhD success?
• Will AI take over science (and the world)?
• What’s the biggest problem in science right now?
• What’s more terrifying—grant rejections or reviewer comments? (Or is it like choosing between a shark and a bear?)
• What’s the weirdest experiment you’ve ever done that actually worked? (Be honest, was it an accident?)
• What’s the one mistake you see young scientists often make (Other than thinking they’ll be done by 5 pm?
• And… has publishing really gotten worse in the past 10 years, or are we just imagining it?

The best part? It’s exclusively for you! But first, we need to know if you’re up for it. If you’re interested in joining this discussion (and maybe even asking a burning question), please register using the link below. Please share this e-mail to your fellow group members and friends who might be interested but didn’t get the link.

Got a question you’d love the moderator to ask? Send it our way at almild@utu.fi & piaranta@utu.fi.

MIST seminar 2023 will be held on 28 September at Kåren.

8.45-9.15 Coffee and sandwich

9.15-9:30 Opening words and announcements

9.30-11.00 Session 1
chaired by Alexander Mildner

9.30-10.00 Pieta Mattila
10.00-10.30 Akira Takeda
10.30-10.45 Eleftheria Maranou (Figueiredo group)
10.45-11.00 Jenna Rannikko (Hollmén group)

11.00-11.30 Coffee and posters

11.30-12.30 Session 2
chaired by Tapio Lönnberg

11.30-12.00 Pekka Ruusuvuori
12.00-12.15 Jussi Lehto (Airas group)
12.15-12.30 Karoliina Hirvonen (Lahesmaa group)

12.30-14.15 Lunch, coffee and posters

14.15-15.45 Session 3
chaired by Pia Rantakari
14.15-14.45 Kirsi Virtanen
14.45-15.00 Santhos Lamichhane (Orešič group)
15.00-15.15 Saara Hämälistö
15.15-15.45 Elisa Närvä

15:45-16.30 Posters and drinks

16.30-19.00 Networking and pizza

Download program

MIST Kick off – day was held on 17 November 2022