Katja Anttila
Associate Professor (Tenure Track)
Group Leader
University of Turku, Department of Biology
PhD - University of Oulu 2009
MSc - University of Oulu 2004
contact: katant"at"utu.fi
Post-docs
Anna Papadopoulou
Postdoctoral student
As member of the Anttila’s lab, Anna is interested in studying the beneficial effects of functional foods on the cardiovascular and immune system of rainbow trout, the most farmed species in the Baltic region, under climate change conditions. Additionally, she wants to test a combination of nutritional supplement with a selective exercise-training program on rainbow trout fry experimentally infected with pathogens. For this research program, the lab team works closely with partners as a Finnish Fish Feed Company, Fisheries Research and Aquaculture Institute, and Åbo Akademi University.
contact: annpap"at"utu.fi
Jenni Prokkola
Post-Doc, Visiting Researcher
Jenni is visiting the Anttila lab as part of her postdoctoral research conducted at the University of Liverpool. She studies the flexibility of oxygen supply system in fish: specifically, how zebrafish cope without myoglobin, which is a central oxygen binding protein and enzyme, and expressed widely across fish tissues. Jenni combines a molecular approach to physiological and whole organism functions, such as the swimming performance of fish.
See more on her website.
contact: jmprok (at) utu.fi
PhD students
Giovanna Mottola
PhD Student
Giovanna comes from Italy where she graduated in Ecotoxicology at the University of Siena. Her research is focused on phenotypic plasticity at physiological and biochemical level in fish. Specifically, she investigates how thermal stress and presence of trace metals affect the thermal tolerance of three-spined sticklebacks and how this response can be transferred to next generations. She also studies cardiocirculatory capacity and heat-shock proteins expression pattern on migrating fish.
contact: giomot“at”utu.fi
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Giovanna_Mottola2
Luca Pettinau
PhD Student
Luca is passionate in the ecophysiology and behavior of fish.
His doctoral project is focus on studying the effects of swimming exercise training program on salmonids heart function to help them face an unstable environment (i.e heat waves and hypoxia conditions) and in this way increase aquaculture production.
email: lupet(at)utu.fi
Tytti Uurasmaa
PhD Student
Co advised by Ilkka Heinonen & Anu Autio
Tytti did her Master's degree programme in University of Turku in animal physiology and genetics. She is currently working on her PhD thesis that is about the effects of exercise on heart function and tumor growth in mice with breast cancer. More specifically she is interested in the underlying alterations in heart and tumor metabolism, vasculature, blood flow and the possible related changes in oxidative stress. One of the main aims of her thesis is to investigate whether exercise can prevent the possible negative effects of breast cancer or chemotherapy on heart function, and wheher exercise can also enhance the effect of chemotherapy on tumor growth.
email: tmeuur(at)utu.fi
Johanna Yliportimo
PhD student
Principal supervisor Kai Lindström
Johanna is working on an eco-evolutionary doctoral thesis at Environmental and Marine Biology, Åbo Akademi University, where her principal supervisor is Professor Kai Lindström. Her research focuses on spatial variation in mating success and sexual selection, using sand goby as a model species. She is especially interested in how the structural habitat and resource distribution influences female reproduction from molecular to population level. In our lab, Johanna is analyzing carotenoid concentrations in egg and gonad samples.
MSc students
Elli Keituri
MSc student
Elli is interested about how environmental stressors and their combination are influencing the physiology of fish. She has special interest on transgenerational effects of environmental stressors. Her thesis is about how parental co-exposure to copper and heat wave influence the offspring thermal tolerance and heat shock protein responses in zebrafish (Danio rerio).
Alexander Pape
Erasmus researcher
Alex is currently working in our group as Erasmus researcher from Germany. His project is about developmental plasticity of zebrafish. He is interested about the influence of environmental stressors and their combination (copper and heat wave) on developmental disorders but also physiology of fish including thermal tolerance and cardiac function.
Ulla Saarinen
MSc Student
Ulla is currently working on her Master thesis on how heatwaves can affect the critical heat tolerance and swimming capacity of trout (Salmo trutta). The thesis also includes comparison between the offspring of different family lines, where the parents of the trout under study have been exposed to different swimming excercises.
She is interested in climate change and unstable weather conditions, ecophysiology and aquaculture.
Joni Eklund
MSc Student
Joni is doing a Master thesis about how crude oil exposure and environmental warming are influencing the metabolic rate of D. magna. He is especially interested about transgerational effects of these stressors and whether or not they have interacting effects on D. magna.
Associated Senior Researchers
Amélie Crespel
Senior Researcher
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amelie-Crespel
Tomi Streng,
Adjunct Professor of Animal Physiology, Senior Researcher
My main interest fields are related to investigating cardiovascular functions, i.e. the role of alpha 2-adrenoceptors and hypoxia. The in vitro methods to test cardiac and vascular functions include the Langendorff perfused heart preparation and the Radnoti working heart model. In addition, I am interested in pharmacokinetics of alpha 2-adrenoceptor-related drugs, also receptor subtype-selective ones, including urodynamical studies in animal models.
contact: tostren (at) utu.fi
Previous Lab Members
Milla Alkio
MSc, MD student
Milla is interested on how the mammal heart responds in pathological situations to exercise training. Specifically, she is interested in the molecular mechanisms that are behind adaptation and if exercise training can reduce the pathophysiological features of the diabetic heart in Göttingen minipigs.
contact: miemal"at"utu.fi
Emilie Suominen
MSc Student
Emilie is doing Master thesis to Åbo Academi. She has been studing the influence of crude oil on metabolic rate of D. magna in three generations. She is especially interested about how the crude oil influences the individual variation of metabolic rate of animals and how change in variance in parental animals influences the metabolic rate of animals in next generations.
Katri Heikkilä
MSc
Katri did her Master's thesis about how endurance training affects calcium channels of the right and left ventricle of diabetic swine. Currently she is writing manuscript about her results.