"We are currently able to make the patient a custom-made piece of bone.  Next we may perhaps be able to make some other tissue and advance to treating patients with new technologies," says Riitta Suuronen.

Researcher profile

Only the best is good enough
for the professor of tissue technology

Riitta Suuronen enjoys research work although raising funding is causing some grey hairs

Text: Maija Mokkila
Picture: Jonne Renvall
Translation: Virginia Mattila

The office of Professor Riitta Suuronen on the Kauppi campus is a hive of industry.  Numerous documents are awaiting the director's attention.  She smiles and scribbles her signature.

"I was the first person to be recruited for the Regea Institute for Regenerative Medicine.  They didn't promise much when they tempted me here from Helsinki.  What they said was "Come and work for us, there is no money, no premises, no personnel."  And that's how we started out."

However, Riitta Suuronen has a strong vision of what the Regea Institute for Regenerative Medicine might become.  And in the last five years the Institute has indeed grown from a one-woman project to an up-and-running unit with a personnel of almost a hundred.  The initial objectives have been achieved:  Regea is the leading institute in its field in Finland and houses the first, and so far only multi-tissue tissue bank in Finland fulfilling EU directives and national legislation.

From a veterinarian to a surgeon and beyond

Riitta Suuronen's career, becoming a professor and the director of Regea took her through dental medicine, veterinary medicine and surgery.

Having qualified as a dentist she began to study veterinary medicine.  However, a severe allergy compelled her to abandon her work with animals after taking the lower degree and to start medical studies.

Even during her days in dentistry Riitta Suuronen was interested in research and surgery.  Her doctoral dissertation was concerned with the use in surgery of biodegradable materials and was completed in her first year of medical studies.  Riitta Suuronen became a Ph.D. in medicine in 1996.

"Biodegradable materials are used as scaffold material in tissue engineering, and so I ended up here," she concludes.

Research work and the lust for blood

Professor Suuronen is anything but a white-coated lab rat.  Congresses and research group meetings call her to far-away places.  When in Finland she is mostly engaged in administrative tasks.

"The greatest challenge and bugbear in this job is to raise funding," she sighs.

Twenty percent of Regea's funding comes from the University of Tampere, the remaining eighty percent must be scraped together from other sources.  Much of the directors' time is consumed by making funding applications, as is that of the Regea senior  researchers.  Indeed, Professor Suuronen hopes that in the future the Institute might be able to have longer funding periods and that the share of University funding would be increased.  As she sits at her desk she longs to be doing practical research work and wishes that she could devote more time to it.

However, as a part-time senior surgeon of Tampere University Hospital, Professor Suuronen hopes that at least once a week she can wield the scalpel.

"A surgeon cannot live without blood.  You need to get that much to the operating table."

Developing a new form of treatment

Last year, in co-operation with the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa, Regea grew a man half a missing upper jaw.  A titanium cage manufactured according to the missing bone was filled with biomaterial in which there were stem cells harvested from the patient's own fat tissues.  The construct was allowed to mature for eight months inside the man's abdominal muscles (the so called six pack) after which the complete jawbone, the soft tissues and blood vessels were transplanted to fill the gap in the upper jaw.

Professor Suuronen considers her work to be highly significant.  Success feeds success and gives her strength to work long days and at weekends.

"I believe that we are developing a completely new third mode of treatment alongside surgery and medicine and that it will enable us to treat increasingly difficult cases."

Professor Suuronen's next ambition is to have a national STEM cell bank in Tampere.

The world continues to debate the ethical implications of using stem cells of embryonic origin.  However, this has not affected the practical work at Regea.  The embryonic stem cells used at the Institute are surplus embryos from fertility treatments which would otherwise be discarded.  According to Professor Suuronen Finnish people understand this and are happy to donate such embryos if they can be used to help treat serious illnesses.

For love of Regea

Sometimes it is essential to slow down and long days must be followed by short recreation.  In her time off, Professor Suuronen walks her dog or plays a round of golf, and calls this time out for the nerves.

So far she has favoured Finland, although the competition for good researchers is fierce and the world is hard and at times handsome offers abound.

"Regea is like a third child for me.  It feels as if my work is still needed here.  I would like to see the Institute grow some more and become adult."