Program for Infection Biology and Infectious Diseases
News and events
Research groups
Pictures: Annual meeting at Vanhalinna, Oct 6, 2011
Goals and visions of the research program
During the last few years, importance of infection biology and infectious diseases research has grown rapidly. Microbes are not only causative agents of infectious diseases, but microbes in our normal microbiota also promote our health by many different ways. Moreover, lack of microbes has even been linked to health problems.
Traditions: Infection biology and infectious diseases research has long traditions in Turku. This concerns basic and clinical science in the field of bacteriology, virology, immunology, clinical diagnostics and clinical infectious diseases research. Several hundreds of thesis works have been published from 1940’ies when research in this field began in Turku. A special building for medical microbiology research and diagnostics, Mikro, was built in 1983 by the University of Turku. In addition to scientific research, advanced biotechnology companies have also been working in Turku in the field of infectious disease diagnostics from 1970’s beginning the former Wallac Co.
New research program: This new research program was launched to get wider and stronger spectrum of infection biology and infectious disease research together. Although the research program presented is new, many of the study groups have been working long time together under umbrella of Turku Immunology Centre. In this renewed program, we have collected together not only older but also younger study groups from basic research to clinical research making the program even more strength. This includes especially clinical research groups that were not members of the former Turku Immunology Centre. Thus, achieved results will be applicable also in the health care system in prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.
Program profile: This new research program has its own profile from basic research to treatment of patients. The research groups can be positioned under five umbrellas: 1) clinical and diagnostic research, 2) virology research, 3) bacteriology research, 4) immunogenetics and host defense, and 5) oral microbiology and general health.
Goals: Our research goals include following research fields. We want to
• to understand action of microbes and microbiota and their interaction with human host
• to develop and apply diagnostic tools for diagnosis of infectious diseases
• to improve targeted treatment of infectious diseases
• to develop prevention of infectious diseases
Our goal is also to enhance co-work and education. For this we want
• to improve collaboration and synergism between study groups in the campus area including the potentials of the forthcoming Micromedicum building (see below)
• to recruit and educate young researchers
• to continue traditional meeting and seminar series and to start high-level international meeting series
• to utilize microbial and patient sample collections and to develop the Turku Biobank initiative
• to support Faculty’s academy funded doctoral programs, and begin to consider national doctoral school together with other Finnish programs in the field in infection biology and infectious diseases
Meeting series: We are proud of our long meeting traditions. The Turku Infection Meeting, monthly clinical infectious diseases meeting has been running consecutively already for 30 years. In addition, the weekly research seminars have gathered together researchers and students already for more than 15 years. Our study groups have also been taking part actively in the Frontiers of Science organized by BioCity Turku.
Micromedicum: University of Turku, The Hospital District of Southwest Finland and National Institute for Health and Welfare are building together a new microbiology and molecular diagnostic research centre, Micromedicum building. Architecture competition was carried out in 2009 and further structural planning was completed January 2012. The main goal of Micromedicum is to increase synergism between the organizations in research, diagnostics, and teaching from basic research to the treatment of patients. Micromedicum will be home of 11 out of 17 research groups of this program.
Biotechnology industry: One of the main strategies of the University of Turku is to enhance innovative research for future commercial products. There are several biotechnology companies that work in the field of infectious disease diagnostics that are important collaborators of many of our study groups.
National surveillance registries: Infection biology and infectious diseases research is supported by nationwide surveillance sample collections and registries of the National Institute for Health and Welfare.