The board of Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab) has appointed Professor Olli Kallioniemi as new the director beginning July 1, 2015. Professor Kallioniemi will be in the position full time beginning in September 2015. He is scheduled to present his research at SciLifeLab Day on April 29 in Aula Medica at Karolinska Institutet, Solna.
“We are very pleased to welcome Olli Kallioniemi as SciLifeLab’s new director.” said Göran Sandberg, chairman of the SciLifeLab board. “Olli Kallioniemi has demonstrated leadership, scientific excellence and vision, both as a researcher and as an advocate of bringing the benefits of molecular medicine to patients.”
Kallioniemi succeeds Mathias Uhlén, who has served as director since the start of SciLifeLab in Stockholm in 2010 and later for the joint national center with Uppsala starting in 2013. The co-director of the national center, Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, will remain in this position.
“It is an exciting opportunity to start as director for SciLifeLab. I look forward to working with the entire staff and stakeholders of the center to develop new opportunities for science and novel enabling technologies,” says Kallioniemi.
Kallioniemi was the first director of the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) at the University of Helsinki in 2007 and has overseen the rapid growth of the institute to a nationally and internationally-known organization. His research spans cancer biology and genomics, molecular pathology and translational research, high-throughput technology development and data analysis.
He will join SciLifeLab as a professor at Karolinska Institutet and continue as a part-time research director at FIMM. In addition, FIMM and SciLifeLab intend to start a close collaboration in infrastructure services as well as joint research programs to enable new possibilities for both institutes, the participating universities and the two countries.
Sockholm-Uppsala Life Science
