We are very proud to announce that today our CoE director was the recipient of the Finnish Science Award! The Biennial prize (est. 1997) is the most prestigious national science award in Finland given by the Ministry of Education and Culture based on recommendations from the Research Council of Finland…
It was a great pleasure to have the opportunity to meet everyone again under one roof. We had talks from postdocs, PhD students and PIs and an active poster session! We also had a lot of fun competing in teams against each other in the CoE “Olympics” organised by Gautier!…
A huge thanks to the Vattulainen team for organising this workshop, giving us a glimpse into their world of biomolecular simulations and helping us understand the general workflow of computational research. The two day workshop consisted of understanding the possibilities and limitations of classical molecular dynamics simulations, performing simple analysis…
Last week we watched nervously as seven PhD student finalists from the University of Turku described their work to a lay audience using one slide, no animation in under three minutes in the three-minute thesis (3MT) competition! It was exciting stuff! Omkar from our Centre was selected to the next…
Epithelial tumors are characterized by abundant inter- and intra-tumor heterogeneity, which complicates diagnostics and treatment. The contribution of cancer-stroma interactions to this heterogeneity is poorly understood. Here, we report a paradigm to quantify phenotypic diversity in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) with single-cell resolution. By combining cell-state markers…
Integrin receptors are the main molecular link between cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM) as well as mediating cell-cell interactions. Integrin-ECM binding triggers the formation of heterogeneous multi-protein assemblies termed integrin adhesion complexes (IACs) that enable integrins to transform extracellular cues into intracellular signals that affect many cellular processes, especially…
The KRAS oncogene drives many common and highly fatal malignancies. These include pancreatic, lung, and colorectal cancer, where various activating KRAS mutations have made the development of KRAS inhibitors difficult. Here we identify the scaffold protein SH3 and multiple ankyrin repeat domain 3 (SHANK3) as a RAS interactor that binds…
Acquisition of specific cell shapes and morphologies is a central component of cell fate transitions. Although signaling circuits and gene regulatory networks that regulate pluripotent stem cell differentiation have been intensely studied, how these networks are integrated in space and time with morphological transitions and mechanical deformations to control state…
We previously identified talin rod domain-containing protein 1 (TLNRD1) as a potent actin-bundling protein in vitro. Here, we report that TLNRD1 is expressed in the vasculature in vivo. Its depletion leads to vascular abnormalities in vivo and modulation of endothelial cell monolayer integrity in vitro. We demonstrate that TLNRD1 is…