Department of Virology

The Department of Virology provides basic virology teaching to students of medicine and dentistry, as well as to students of the master's program in translational medicine. In addition, the virology department organizes post-graduate scientific training for doctoral students and doctors specializing in medicine.

The main themes of the research carried out in virology are

• zoonotic viruses, especially viruses spread by rodents and arthropods and their diagnostics, molecular epidemiology, evolution, disease associations and pathogenesis,
• One Health and factors driving emergence of viral diseases,
• parvovirus pathogenesis and epidemiology and innovative diagnostics of their infections,
• small protein- and peptide-based inhibitors for blocking host cell entry of enveloped viruses, 
• antiviral vaccines,
• tissue-resident human virome, composition and clinical impact,
• development of bioinformatic tools for viral discovery and monitoring,
• disease associations and mechanisms of human papilloma- and polyomaviruses,
• molecular diagnostics and pathogenesis of chlamydial infections,
• molecular interactions between viruses and their host cells, especially in relation to cell communication and the evasion from antiviral immunity, and 
• entry routes of viruses into the brain and the role of viral infections of the central nervous system in chronic neurological diseases.

Publications

• Eeva Auvinen – Papilloma- and Polyomavirus study group 
• Jussi Hepojoki – Virus – Host Interactions group
• Maria Perdomo and Klaus Hedman – Virus Infections and Immunity
• Mirja Puolakkainen - Chlamydial infections
• Kalle Saksela - Protein interactions in viral cell biology and biotechnology 
• Tomas Strandin – Pathogenesis of hantavirus infections.
• Olli Vapalahti – Viral Zoonoses Research Unit
• Giuseppe Balistreri – Viral Cell Biology Lab
• Tarja Sironen – Emerging Infections Research group
• Maria Söderlund-Venermo – Human Parvovirus Research Group