University of Oulu - Biocenter

University of Oulu - Biocenter
P.O.Box 5000
FI-90014 University of Oulu
Finland

Project Leader

Prof. Seppo Vainio
Contact

Project Staff

Florence Naillat, PhD
Post Doc

Antti Railo, PhD
Post Doc

Jingdong Shan, PhD
Post Doc

Ilya Skovorodkin, PhD
Post Doc

Other staff coming soon

Institute Presentation

The Vainio team targets the fundamental mechanisms of kidney organogenesis. The team has developed a panel of sophisticated experimental technologies utilizing kidney organ culture methods and classic embryology in combination with latest molecular genetic tools, which offer new and faster ways to target the mechanisms leading to CAKUT. The team has developed and takes use of pluripotent cells to study nephrogenesis in detail.

Prof. Vainio has full access to all core facility services of Oulu Biocenter, i.e. transgenic mouse-, electron microscopy, DNA microarray, cell imaging, and virus laboratory and histology cores, and a brandnew barrier animal house. We have several stereo-microscopes, confocal and real-time imaging scopes for time-lapse microsopy that collectively form a very unique set up for our contribution to the EURenOmics project. We have also robots for genotyping of DNA samples of the embryos and transgenic mouse lines. We have our own cell culture laboratories for stem, primary and permanent cell culture. We have two real-time PCR equipment’s and in the in situ hybridization laboratory with robots for high-throughput staining. All ES gene targeting will be done in the TG core facility that has recently established ipS cell production protocols for the mouse. Human ipS cells will be made via the Biocenter Finland cores. Our laboratory is the first to have tools and protocols to monitor developing organs in 3D and to quantitate them with optical projection tomography (OPT). This is a unique and tremendous resource for the EURenOmics project as well. We have FACS, magnetic bead separation and laser capture microscopy for cell/tissue purification.

The post-docs Ilya Skovorodkin, Jigndong Shan and Florence Naillat have developed a unique set of technological platforms for renal functional genomics ex vivo and in vivo to address the roles of the candidate CAKUT genes. The expertise of these scientists and the PhD students they are guiding has allowed to develop a panel of unique organ culture methods and offer a medium-throughput platform to assay CAKUT genes at the fundamental level.

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