Olli Lohi awarded by the Foundation for Pediatric Research

Last Friday, Docent and a specialist in Paediatrics and children’s hemato-onclogical disorders, Olli Lohi, received the Helena and Niilo Hallman medal and a EUR 15,000 award from the Foundation for Pediatric Research. Lohi works as a researcher at the new Tampere Center for Child Health Research at the University of Tampere.

The Helena and Niilo Hallman medal and award are granted every second year to an internationally accomplished young Finnish researcher in paediatrics. The award was granted for the 13th time in 2012.

Olli Lohi earned his medical degree at the University of Oulu. According to the award panel at the Foundation for Pediatric Research, Lohi is an exceptionally talented and innovative paediatric doctor and researcher and his research work is original and pioneering.

The team that Lohi directs at the Tampere Center for Child Health Research analyses the mechanisms of malignant cell growth especially in paediatric leukaemias. The focus is on understanding the role of the nucleolus which has a pivotal role in the regulation of the production of proteins in cancer cells.

In acute paediatric leukaemia, the white blood cells of the L2 type (lymphoblasts) are clearly discernible because of their large nucleoli. Olli Lohi’s research project aims at elucidating the reasons for the variation of the morphology of leukemic cells and at developing new prognostic and classifying tools for leukemias.