Alma Yrjänäinen, Oskari Kulta
Photo: Jonne Renvall, edited Karim Ameziane
Methods for future personalized medicine
In 2000, Hyttinen received his professorship and founded a research group of his own. Though he has led the research group ever since, the research aims and goals have been evolving towards its current form. Around 2013, CBIG became CBIG as it is currently called and focuses on finding novel solutions for personalized medicine.
Nowadays, CBIG consists of around 20 people with different educational backgrounds. ’’Some are more focused on cell culture and wet lab work, some are mostly working with imaging and some of the group members focus on computational biology.‘’ Hyttinen describes when asked about his group members. Currently, as part of CoEBoC, CBIG focuses on providing novel, high resolution microscopy solutions to be implemented with body-on-chips as well as electrophysiological models and in silico modeling of cells and tissues.
Research, funding and teaching
‘’I have recently escaped myself from the practical laboratory work, but I get to do a lot of handicraft projects on my leisure time! ‘’ Hyttinen laughs as he is asked about whether he misses the hands-on laboratory work. Currently his work consists of preparing numerous funding applications and of course, teaching.
Fall semester is reserved for lectures and Academy of Finland funding applications whereas spring semester is all about teaching duties and preparing EU-funding applications. In addition to the duties in the faculty, Hyttinen makes visits to Brussel in connection to the European society’s yearly event in EU parliament to lobby biomedical engineering sciences.
On top of his vast academic experience, Hyttinen has established himself also on the commercial sector. He holds multiple patents and was awarded as the inventor of the year 2021 by Tampere University. Injeq IQ-Tip®, a smart needle able to recognize the tissue type based on its electrical conductance, is one of the latest inventions Hyttinen has been developing.
Keep on rockin’!
As the calendar is fully booked with overlapping meetings and little time to relax, Hyttinen still gets to enjoy his leisure time. Hyttinen enjoys building music technology – and consumes a lot of music, including Suomi-Rock and some punk music. Even summer holidays are comparatively easy to organize. ‘’Although I need to keep up with my email, otherwise I will get lost on my inbox!’’ Hyttinen adds.
As a part of CoEBoC, Hyttinen sees the research consortium as unique, multidisciplinary community. ‘’Especially post-COVID, it is wonderful to have on-site seminars and be re-united with the CoEBoCers!’’ Hyttinen depicts.
Find more info about Hyttinen’s research group, GBIG, here.
Both CBIG and Hyttinen are also active at twitter. Follow @HyttinenLabCBIG and @JariAKHyttinen to get the latest updates.