About us | Biomedicum Genomics

The Company

Biomedicum Genomics (BMGen) was established in 2007 to make rapidly evolving technologies in the field of functional genomics more accessible for biotechnology, pharmaceutical and contract research industries. BMGen operates in the premises of the Academic Medical Center Helsinki, surrounded by the largest basic and clinical genomics research environment in Finland.

BMGen is located in Biomedicum Helsinki building with access to state-of-the-art equipment, infrastructure, computational platforms and scientific expertise, which have guaranteed a global leading position in genomics and functional genomics research. The functional genomics platforms have been systematically developed over the past 15 years with substantial investment from the University of Helsinki, Helsinki University Central Hospital and medical funding organizations.

BMGen strives to be a reliable research partner offering both the latest genomics technology and forefront scientific expertise for the benefit of your innovation and discovery. BMGen works together with its partners, performing different tasks of a project or a full research project or a discovery program. We provide help with the experimental design and with choosing an optimal assay platform for partner’s specific needs. The services include all the steps from experimental design to laboratory experiments and bioinformatic data analysis. BMGen has also special expertise in genetic engineering and chemical biology applications, which include RNAi and CRISPR/Cas9 based genome editing solutions and middle throughput drug sensitivity assays.

Feel free to ask more about our services and platforms at any time. We hope to be your next research partner and look forward to share your excitement in discovery.

Our Team

Management and operational development

Outi Monnico-founder

Outi Monni is a co-founder of BMGen. She received her PhD in 1998 in cancer genetics at the Department of Medical Genetics, University of Helsinki. She carried out her post-doctoral training at the Cancer Genetics Branch, National Institutes of Health (Bethesda, MD, USA). Outi has been actively involved in running and developing the research infrastructure at the Meilahti campus now for more than 10 years and has had a major impact in providing state-of-the-art genomics technologies to academic institutes and companies nationwide. Her scientific focus is mainly on cancer genomics with publications in high quality scientific journals.

Juha Klefströmco-founder

Juha Klefström is a co-founder of BMGen. He received his PhD in 1997 from the University of Helsinki in cancer biology and was further trained in experimental oncology at Cancer Research UK in London and UCSF in San Francisco. He holds numerous trustee positions in national and international research boards and committees. His scientific focus is on functional genomics and breast cancer and he has contributed as a last or senior author to a number of high profile publications.

Johanna Björkrothmember of board

Johanna Björkroth has a PhD from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Helsinki. She is professor of food hygiene, Vice-Rector Emerita and Editor of Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Johanna has had trustee and expert positions in many different commissions in the University of Helsinki, enterprises, foundations and at learned societies as well as on editorial boards.

Technology & Research

Pauliina MunneNGS specialist

Pauliina Munne received her PhD degree in Developmental Biology and Physiology at the University of Helsinki, in 2010. She then continued her training in the field of cancer biology at the Institute for Molecular Medicine (FIMM) at the University of Helsinki. She has worked as a consultant since 2014 in BMGen in designing and coordinating projects in the field of next generation sequencing, qRT-PCR, and microarrays.

Topi Tervonengene editing specialist

Topi Tervonen received his PhD in 2008, in the field of neural stem cells at Neuroscience Center, University of Helsinki and continued his post-doctoral training in cancer biology at University of Helsinki. Topi works for BMGen as a consultant in designing and coordinating projects in the field of protein analyses as well as genome editing.

Anne Mäkelächief operating officer

Anne Makelä received her MSc degree in 2005 in developmental biology at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oulu. She has worked for many years for functional genomics service providers coordinating projects and managing infrastructure, as well as being involved in productisation of research processes and products.

Selected publications

Haikala HM, Klefström J, Eilers M, Wiese KE. MYC-induced apoptosis in mammary epithelial cells is associated with repression of lineage-specific gene signatures. Cell Cycle. 2016;15(3):316-23

Pehkonen H, von Nandelstadh P, Karhemo PR, Lepikhova T, Grenman R, Lehti K, Monni O. Liprin-α1 is a regulator of vimentin intermediate filament network in the cancer cell adhesion machinery. Sci Rep. 2016 Apr 14;6:24486

Myant K, Qiao X, Halonen T, Come C, Laine A, Janghorban M, Partanen JI, Cassidy J, Ogg EL, Cammareri P, Laiterä T, Okkeri J, Klefström J, Sears RC, Sansom OJ, Westermarck J. Serine 62-Phosphorylated MYC Associates with Nuclear Lamins and Its Regulation by CIP2A Is Essential for Regenerative Proliferation. Cell Rep. 2015; 12(6):1019-31

Tervonen TA, Belitškin D, Pant SM, Englund JI, Marques E, Ala-Hongisto H, Nevalaita L, Sihto H, Heikkilä P, Leidenius M, Hewitson K, Ramachandra M, Moilanen A, Joensuu H, Kovanen PE, Poso A, Klefström J. Deregulated hepsin protease activity confers oncogenicity by concomitantly augmenting HGF/MET signalling and disrupting epithelial cohesion. Oncogene 2015. doi: 10.1038/onc.2015.248. [Epub ahead of print]

Marques E, Englund JI, Tervonen TA, Virkunen E, Laakso M, Myllynen M, Mäkelä A, Ahvenainen M, Lepikhova T, Monni O, Hautaniemi S, Klefström J. Par6G suppresses cell proliferation and is targeted by loss-of-function mutations in multiple cancers. Oncogene 2015. doi: 10.1038/onc.2015.196. [Epub ahead of print]

Wiese KE, Haikala HM, von Eyss B, Wolf E, Esnault C, Rosenwald A, Treisman R, Klefström J, Eilers M. Repression of SRF target genes is critical for Myc-dependent apoptosis of epithelial cells. EMBO J. 2015; 34(11):1554-71

Heinonen H, Lepikhova T, Sahu B, Pehkonen H, Pihlajamaa P, Louhimo R, Gao P, Wei GH, Hautaniemi S, Jänne OA, Monni O. Identification of several potential chromatin binding sites of HOXB7 and its downstream target genes in breast cancer. Int J Cancer 2015; 137(10):2374-83

Werner S, Brors B, Eick J, Marques E, Pogenberg V, Parret A, Kemming D, Wood AW, Edgren H, Neubauer H, Streichert T, Riethdorf S, Bedi U, Baccelli I, Jücker M, Eils R, Fehm T, Trumpp A, Johnsen SA, Klefström J, Wilmanns M, Müller V, Pantel K, Wikman H. Suppression of early hematogenous dissemination of human breast cancer cells to bone marrow by retinoic Acid-induced 2. Cancer Discov. 2015; 5(5):506-19

Hickman JA, Graeser R, de Hoogt R, Vidic S, Brito C, Gutekunst M, van der Kuip H; IMI PREDECT Consortium. Three-dimensional models of cancer for pharmacology and cancer cell biology: capturing tumor complexity in vitro/ex vivo. Biotechnol J. 2014; 9(9):1115-28

Nieminen A, Eskelinen V, Haikala H, Tervonen T, Yan Y, Partanen J, Klefström J. Myc-induced AMPK-phospho p53 pathway activates Bak to sensitize mitochondrial apoptosis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2013; 110(20):E1839-48

Khanna A, Kauko O, Böckelman C, Laine A, Schreck I, Partanen JI, Szwajda A, Bormann S, Bilgen T, Helenius M, Pokharel YR, Pimanda J, Russel MR, Haglund C, Cole KA, Klefström J, Aittokallio T, Weiss C, Ristimäki A, Visakorpi T, Westermarck J. Chk1 targeting reactivates PP2A tumor suppressor activity in cancer cells. Cancer Res. 2013; 73(22):6757-69

Louhimo R, Lepikhova T, Monni O, Hautaniemi S. Comparative analysis of algorithms for integration of copy number and gene expression data. Nat Methods 2012; 9(4):351-5

Partanen JI, Tervonen TA, Myllynen M, Lind E, Imai M, Katajisto P, Dijkgraaf GJ, Kovanen PE, Mäkelä TP, Werb Z, Klefström J. Tumor suppressor function of Liver kinase B1 (Lkb1) is linked to regulation of epithelial integrity. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2012; 109(7):E388-97

Chen P, Lepikhova T, Hu Y, Monni O, Hautaniemi S. Comprehensive exon array data processing method for quantitative analysis of alternative spliced variants. Nucleic Acids Res, 2011; 39(18):e123

Junnila S, Kokkola A, Karjalainen-Lindsberg ML, Puolakkainen P, Monni O. Genome-wide gene copy number and expression analysis of primary gastric tumors and gastric cancer cell lines. BMC Cancer, 2010; 10:73

Junnila S, Kokkola A, Mizuguchi T, Hirata K, Karjalainen-Lindsberg ML, Puolakkainen P, Monni O. Gene expression analysis identifies over-expression of CXCL1, SPARC, SPP1, and SULF1 in gastric cancer. Genes Chromosomes Cancer, 2010; 49(1):28-39

Mäkitie AM, Monni O. Molecular profiling of laryngeal cancer. Expert Rev Anticancer Ther. 2009; 9(9):1251-1260

Myllykangas S, Junnila S, Kokkola A, Autio R, Scheinin I, Karjalainen-Lindsberg M-L, Kiviluoto T, Hollmén J, Knuutila S, Puolakkainen P, Monni O. Integrated gene copy number and expression microarray analysis of gastric cancer highlights potential target genes. Int J Cancer 2008 Aug 15;123(4):817-25

Heinonen H, Nieminen A, Saarela M, Kallioniemi A, Klefström J, Hautaniemi S, Monni O. Deciphering downstream gene targets of PI3K/mTOR/p70S6K pathway in breast cancer. BMC Genomics 2008; 9:348

Järvinen AK, Autio R, Kilpinen S, Saarela M, Leivo I, Grénman R, Mäkitie AA, Monni O. High-resolution copy number and gene expression microarray analyses of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cell lines of tongue and larynx. Genes Chromosomes Cancer 2008; 47(6):500-9

Partanen JI, Nieminen AI, Mäkelä TP, Klefstrom J. Suppression of oncogenic properties of c-Myc by LKB1-controlled epithelial organization. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2007; 104(37):14694-9

Nieminen AI, Partanen JI, Hau A, Klefstrom J. c-Myc primed mitochondria determine cellular sensitivity to TRAIL-induced apoptosis. EMBO J. 2007 Feb 21;26(4):1055-67

Järvinen AK, Autio R, Haapa-Paananen S, Wolf M, Saarela M, Leivo I, Grénman R, Kallioniemi O, Mäkitie AA, Monni O. Identification of target genes in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma by high-resolution copy number and gene expression microarray analyses. Oncogene 2006 Nov 2;25(52):6997-7008