Principal Investigator:
Olli Kallioniemi, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), University of Helsinki, Tukholmankatu 8, 00140 University of Helsinki, Finland. Director of the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence on Translational Genome-scale Biology, Medical Biotechnology, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and University of Turku. Laboratory address: Medical Biotechnology, PharmaCity, Itäinen Pitkäkatu 4C, P.O. Box 106, FI-20521 Turku, Finland.
Tel. +358-20-722 2800. Fax +358-20-722 2840. Email: [email protected].
Biography:
Dr. Olli Kallioniemi (born 1960) received his M.D. in 1984 and Ph.D. in 1988 at the University of Tampere in Finland. Olli Kallioniemi held several positions in the US over a 10-year period, most recently (1995-2002) as the Head of Translational Genomics Section at the Cancer Genetics Branch, National Human Genome Research Institute, at NIH, Bethesda, Maryland. Since 2003, he has been Professor of Medical Biotechnology at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland with a joint appointment at the University of Turku. Academy of Finland Professorship in 2004-2007. In 2007, he was nominated as a director of the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), a Nordic EMBL Partnership in Molecular Medicine. He continues to direct the ongoing projects in Turku until the end of 2011. He is an author of 250 publications and editor or member of the editorial board of six journals. Inventor of 15 issued patents, with a focus on technology development, such as Comparative Genomic Hybridization (CGH) in 1992, tissue microarrays in 1998 and cell-based RNAi microarrays in 2003. EACR young investigator award in 1994, Anders Jahre Prize in 1998, NIH Director’s lecture in 2000, Medal of the Swedish Medical Society in 2003, National Academy of Sciences (Finland) in 2005, EMBO Membership in 2006, and the Abbot-IFCC award in Molecular Diagnostics 2009.
Personnel:
Ph.D-students: Anna Aakula, M.Sc., Elmar Bucher, M.Sc., Mari Björkman, M.Sc., Santosh Gupta, M.Sc., Kirsi Ketola, M.Sc., Pekka Kohonen, M.Sc. Paula Vainio, M.Sc., Sirkku Pollari, M.Sc., Coordinator: Riina Plosila, M.Sc.
Description of the Project:
The overall purpose of this research program is to develop and apply high-throughput technologies to understand mechanisms of progression of breast and prostate cancers as well as to identify mechanisms of drug response..
The aims of the various research programs are to:
Apply cancer genomics to identify key genes and pathways in 1.
breast and prostate cancer
Apply high-throughput RNA interference and chemical biology 2.
to identify living cells, with particular attention towards cancer- specific vulnerabilities and steroid-dependent signaling and Translate the molecular discoveries towards drug discovery, 3.
clinical diagnostics and personalized medicine.
We are using advanced systems biology and chemical biology approaches to characterize the deregulation of cancer cell functions. The research is carried out in collaboration between the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), the Medical Biotechnology Centre of the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the Turku Centre for Biotechnology. Our group coordinates Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in Translational Genome-Scale Cell Biology. We have developed biochip technologies, bioinformatics, systems biology, translational cancer research and drug development technologies, such as cell microarrays, protein lysate microarrays, in silico profiling of gene expression in clinical samples and many others.
Collaborators:
Tomi Mäkelä, Lauri Aaltonen, Jussi Taipale, Päivi Ojala, Sampsa Hautaniemi, Heli Nevanlionna, Heikki Joensuu, Kari Alitalo, Jonathan Knowles, Emmy Verschuren, Sergey Kuzneshov, Krister Wennerberg (FIMM and Biomedicum Helsinki), Antti Poso, Tapio Visakorpi, Jukka Westermarck and many others in other Universities in Finland. We have over 100 collaborators in current EU projects such as Epitron, Genica, APO-SYS, Prosper and Meta-Cancer (FP7).
Funding:
The Academy of Finland, Tekes, Finnish Cancer Organizations and Sigrid Juselius Foundation. Our biggest source of funding comes from the EU framework projects, including Epitron, Genica, APO- SYS, Prosper and Meta-Cancer (FP7).
Selected recent publications:
Rantala JK, Edgren H, Lehtinen L, Wolf M, Kleivi K, Moen Vollan HK, Aaltola A-R, Laasola P, Kilpinen S, Saviranta P, Iljin K, Kallioniemi O. Integrative Functional Genomics Analysis of Sustained Polyploidy Phenotypes in Breast Cancer Cells Identifies an Oncogenic Profile Role for GINS21,2. Neoplasia, in press, 2010
Gupta S, Iljin K, Sara H, Mpindi JP, Mirtti T, Vainio P, Rantala J, Alanen K, Nees M, Kallioniemi O. FZD4 as a Mediator of ERG Oncogene-Induced WNT Signaling and Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition in Human Prostate Cancer Cells. Cancer Res. 2010 Aug 16.
McBride DJ, Orpana AK, Sotiriou C, Joensuu H, Stephens PJ, Mudie LJ, Hämäläinen E, Stebbings LA, Andersson LC, Flanagan AM, Durbecq V, Ignatiadis M, Kallioniemi O, Heckman CA, Alitalo K, Edgren H, Futreal PA, Stratton MR, Campbell PJ. Use of cancer- specific genomic rearrangements to quantify disease burden in plasma from patients with solid tumors. Genes Chromosomes Cancer. 2010 Aug 19.
International Cancer Genome Consortium. International network of cancer genome projects. Nature, 464(7291):993-998, 2010. Härmä V, Virtanen J, Mäkelä R, Happonen A, Mpindi JP, Knuuttila M, Kohonen P, Lötjönen J, Kallioniemi O, Nees M. A comprehensive panel of three-dimensional models for studies of prostate cancer growth, invasion and drug responses. PLoS One, 5(5):e10431, 2010.
Pollari S, Käkönen SM, Edgren H, Wolf M, Kohonen P, Sara H, Guise T, Nees M, Kallioniemi O. Enhanced serine production by 1.
2. 3.
bone metastatic breast cancer cells stimulates osteoglastogenesis. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2010 Mar 30.
Nevo J, Mattila E, Pellinen T, Yamamoto DL, Sara H, Iljin K, Kallioniemi O, Bono P, Heikkilä P, Joensuu H, Wärri A, Ivaska J. Mammary- Derived Growth Inhibitor Alters Traffic of EGFR and Induces a Novel Form of Cetuximab Resistance. Clin Cancer Res.,15(21):6570-81, 2009.
Main H, Lee KL, Yang H, Haapa-Paananen S, Edgren H, Jin S, Sahlgren C, Kallioniemi O, Poellinger L, Lim B, Lendahl U. Interactions between Notch- and hypoxia-induced transcriptomes in embryonic stem cells. Exp Cell Res., 316(9):1610-1624, 2010. Leivonen SK, Mäkelä R, Ostling P, Kohonen P, Haapa-Paananen S, Kleivi K, Enerly E, Aakula A, Hellström K, Sahlberg N, Kristensen VN, Børresen-Dale AL, Saviranta P, Perälä M, Kallioniemi O. Protein lysate microarray analysis to identify microRNAs regulating estrogen receptor signaling in breast cancer cell lines. Oncogene, 28(44):3926-3936, 2009.
Iljin K, Ketola K, Vainio P, Halonen P, Kohonen P, Fey V, Grafström RC, Perälä M, Kallioniemi O. High-throughput cell-based screening of 4910 known drugs and drug-like small molecules identifies disulfiram as an inhibitor of prostate cancer cell growth. Clin Cancer
Res., 15(19):6070-6078, 2009.
From left to right, sitting: Paula Vainio, Mari Björkman, Riina Plosila, Pekka Kohonen, standing: Kirsi Ketola, Anna Aakula, Santosh Gupta, Olli Kallioniemi, Sirkku Pollari, Elmar Bucher.
Côme C, Laine A, Chanrion M, Edgren H, Mattila E, Liu X, Jonkers J, Ivaska J, Isola J, Darbon JM, Kallioniemi O, Thézenas S, Westermarck J. CIP2A is associated with human breast cancer aggressivity. Clin Cancer Res., 15(16):5092-5100, 2009.
Varjosalo M, Björklund M, Cheng F, Syvänen H, Kivioja T, Kilpinen S, Sun Z, Kallioniemi O, Stunnenberg HG, He, W-W, Ojala P, Taipale J. Application of Active and Kinase-Deficient Kinome Collection for Identification of Kinases Regulating Hedgehog Signaling. Cell, 133:537-548, 2008.
Pellinen T, Tuomi S, ArjonenA, WolfM, EdgrenH, Meyer H, Rantala JK, KallioniemiO, Fässler R, KallioM and Ivaska J. Integrin traffic regulated by Rab21 is necessary for cytokinesis. Dev. Cell., 15(3):371-385, 2008.
Kilpinen S, Autio R, Ojala K, Iljin K, Bucher E, Sara H, Pisto T, Saarela M, Skotheim R, Björkman M, Mpindi J. P., Haapa- Paananen S, Vainio P, Edgren H, Wolf M, Astola J, Nees M, Hautaniemi S, Kallioniemi Olli. Systematic bioinformatic analysis of expression levels of 17,330 human genes across 9,783 samples from 175 types of healthy and pathological tissues. Genome Biol., 9(9):R139, 2008.
Björkman M, Kristiina I, Halonen P, Henri S, Kaivanto E, Nees M, Kallioniemi Olli. Defining the molecular action of HDAC inhibitors and synergism with androgen deprivation in ERG-positive prostate cancer. Int J Cancer, 123 (12):2774-2781, 2008.
Iljin K, Wolf M, Edgren H, Gupta S, Kilpinen S, Skotheim R, Peltola M, Smit F, Verhaegh G, Schalken J, Nees M, Kallioniemi O. 2006. TMPRSS2 fusions with oncogenic ETS factors in prostate cancer involve unbalanced genomic rearrangements and are associated with HDAC1 and epigenetic reprogramming. Cancer Res., 66:10242-10246, 2006.
Edgren, H. & Kallioniemi, O. Integrated breast cancer genomics.