The Molecular medicine group works at the A.I.Virtanen Institute in University of Kuopio. The group is lead by Dr. Seppo Ylä-Herttuala, PhD and it comprises 6 postdoctoral fellows,  21 MD / PhD and graduate students and 5 laboratory technicians.
 

Dr. Ylä-Herttuala and his group are pioneers in cardiovascular gene therapy. They were the first to use adenovirus gene transfer in human arteries in 1996. Since then, the group has used gene transfer techniques to test experimental hypotheses and to find out new treatment strategies for the therapy of cardiovascular diseases.

Most activity in the laboratory at the moment is in the analysis of the effects of VEGF-A, -B, -C, -D and PLGF in ischemic tissues and blood vessels and on vector development. In vector development the group has shown for the first time that baculoviruses can be used for gene transfer in mammalian tissues in vivo. Also, peptide-targeted adenoviruses and a regulated lentiviral system have been developed and shown to work in vivo.
 

In addition, Dr. Ylä-Herttuala’s laboratory has an active gene therapy program for malignant glioma which has led to phase II clinical trials. Altogether, eight clinical gene therapy trials have been completed by the group at A.I.Virtanen Institute and Gene Therapy Unit at the Kuopio University Hospital.

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