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Dr. Anu Suomalainen-Wartiovaara is Academy Professor at the University of Helsinki and Chief Physician at the Helsinki University Hospital. Her lab focuses on clarifying molecular basis of tissue-specificity in disease manifestations. They focus on mechanisms how different mitochondrial-elicited signals modify whole-cellular, organ and systemic metabolism and result in disease manifestations sometimes in the brain, other times only in the liver, muscle or heart. They have described major metabolic stress responses that modify cellular metabolic homeostasis in a tissue-specific manner and, importantly, have shown that these responses can be targetable by metabolic bypass or rewiring therapies. The overarching goal of ASWlab of mitochondrial medicine is to use basic biology tools and metabolic knowledge to clarify molecular pathogenesis and identify and test potential treatment targets.

https://www.helsinki.fi/en/researchgroups/mitochondrial-medicine

Recent publications:

Ignatenko O, Malinen S, Rybas S, Vihinen H, Nikkanen J, Kononov A, Jokitalo ES, Ince-Dunn G, Suomalainen A. Mitochondrial dysfunction compromises ciliary homeostasis in astrocytes. J Cell Biol. 2023 Jan 2;222(1):e202203019.

Mito T, Vincent AE, Faitg J, Taylor RW, Khan NA, McWilliams TG, Suomalainen A. Mosaic dysfunction of mitophagy in mitochondrial muscle disease. Cell Metab. 2022;34:197-208.

Pirinen E, Auranen M, Khan NA, Brilhante V, Urho N, Pessia A, Hakkarainen A, Ulla Heinonen JK, Schmidt MS, Haimilahti K, Piirilä P, Lundbom N, Taskinen MR, Brenner C, Velagapudi V, Pietiläinen KH, Suomalainen A. Niacin Cures Systemic NAD⁺ Deficiency and Improves Muscle Performance in Adult-Onset Mitochondrial Myopathy.Cell Metab. 2020;32(1):144.

Forsström S, Jackson CB, Carroll CJ, Kuronen M, Pirinen E, Pradhan S, Marmyleva A, Auranen M, Kleine IM, Khan NA, Roivainen A, Marjamäki P, Liljenbäck H, Wang L, Battersby BJ, Richter U, Velagapudi V, Nikkanen J, Euro L, Suomalainen A. Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 Drives Dynamics of Local and Systemic Stress Responses in Mitochondrial Myopathy with mtDNA Deletions. Cell Metab. 2019;30:1040-1054

Hämäläinen RH, Landoni JC, Ahlqvist KJ, Goffart S, Ryytty S, Rahman MO, Brilhante V, Icay K, Hautaniemi S, Wang L, Laiho M, Suomalainen A. Defects in mtDNA replication challenge nuclear genome stability through nucleotide depletion and provide a unifying mechanism for mouse progerias.Nat Metab. 2019;1:958-965.