Pirkanmaa Hospital District
Pirkanmaa Hospital District (TAUH) (Tampere, Finland) is a joint municipal authority owned by 23 municipalities. Healthcare is delivered by Tampere University Hospital, which is part of Pirkanmaa Hospital District . TAUH is both a healthcare provider and research institution, with a population of 1 M in the university hospital catchment area. The research done within RISCC is also part of a larger network FICAN-Mid, which was established in 2017 to provide an umbrella organization for cancer prevention, diagnostic and care, and cancer research conducted at the University of Tampere Hospital and University of Tampere. Cancer prevention research is the spearhead of FICAN-Mid research activities country-wide. It involves randomized trials on the impact of primary cancer prevention (HPV vaccination, www.rokotiitus.net), and secondary prevention (screening for breast cancer, cervical cancer and prostate cancer). With vaccination and screening prone population and established study site infrastructure participation percentages to screening and vaccination (vaccination coverage) are high, and truly population-based. The team at TAUH will lead workpackage 3.
Prof. M. Lehtinen
Professor Matti Lehtinen, MD PhD is pioneering PI in population-based randomized intervention studies to assess the: 1) Long-term HPV vaccine efficacy against most stringent neoplasia end-points, 2) Impact of different HPV vaccination strategies in the eradication of high-risk HPV from entire population of the young, and 3) Accuracy/safety of infrequent vs. frequent screening of HPV vaccinated women. Between 2002-2018, working jointly at the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare and at the University of Tampere, he established 33 study sites all over Finland to enroll population-based HPV vaccination and screening cohorts of altogether 80.000 consented, originally adolescent girls and boys continuously linkable to all Finnish health registers. Presently, 8.000 HPV-vaccinated women from birth cohorts 1992-95 are participating last two rounds of the randomized screening trial in the 33 study sites. Prof. Lehtinen has supervised 16 PhD theses and published 375 scientific research articles.
T. Eriksson, MSc
Tiina Eriksson is the project coordinator at TAUH and is responsible for directing, organizing and controlling randomized trial activities under the direction of the Prof.Lehtinen. In addition to determining project requirements and coordinating/managing the clinical trials she assists the PI in the drafting and issuance of project proposals, budgets, cash flows and preliminary schedules, track the progress and quality of work being performed by the research team. She also monitors research, work hours, budgets/expenditures, and communicates relevant project information to the research collaborators, issues invoices, contracts, letters of intent, etc. She keeps the PI and the research collaborators informed about project status and issues that may impact project outcomes.
Dr. V. Pimenoff
Senior researcher Ville N. Pimenoff, PhD has a background in population genetics and viral genomics, and his novel work in HPVs evolution has reached wide recognition. During his postdoctoral period Dr. Pimenoff has worked in Dr. Xavier F. Bosch’s group in Catalan Institute of Oncology (Spain), in Dr. Victor Moreno’s group in Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (Spain) as well as in University of Pompeu Fabra (Spain), Charite - Humboldt University (Germany) and University of Helsinki (Finland). Currently he works at Karolinska Institutet (Dillner group, Sweden) and University of Tampere/Oulu (Lehtinen group, Finland) to explore microbial and pathogen exposures in human health and disease leveraging the large Finnish HPV vaccination cohort data. His methodological expertise is in metagenomic bioinformatics, Bayesian and deep learning applications and phylodynamics implemented in studies of pathogen genomics and host-pathogen interaction. He is a member of the Human Exposome Assessment Platform and the European Human Exposome Network.
Prof. K. Louvanto
Karolina Louvanto, MD PhD is Professor (tenure track) and Deputy Chief in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University and Tampere University hospital. She has a wide expertise on molecular epidemiology and biomarkers that involve human Papillomavirus (HPV) - infection and the disease progression. She has a keen interest in finding the most effective future cervical cancer screening tolls and guidelines for HPV vaccinated women.
