News

2025 Mar: Kalle and Juho joined the Spark Europe Showcase in Birmingham, UK. Thank you, Spark Midlands and Spark Finland, for the invitation, and the participants, for the exciting discussions on healthcare innovations.

2025 Jan: Our article on ‘‘Probabilistic analysis of spatial viscoelastic cues in 3D cell culture using magnetic microrheometry‘, by Ossi, Arttu, Mari, Markus, and Juho, was published in Biophysical Journal [link]

2024 Oct: Juho defended his Consolidator Grant application to European Research Council (ERC) in an interview (Step 2).

2024 July: Juho presented an invited talk about the use of cell-scale mechanical data in cancer 3D cell cultures in the annual international Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales (MARSS) on the TU Delft campus in the Netherlands. My cordial thanks for the invitation by the organizers/chairs of the special session in Robotic Micromanipulation for Cell and Tissue Mechanobiology!

2024 June: Our next key research direction, with recently received funding, has now been featured in an Aalto University press release [in English; in Finnish], as well as in news releases including the Newswise article [link].

2024 Apr-May: Juho joined the Stanford Drug Discovery Symposium, together with Spark Finland and Norway, to represent our MechScopy project. The related events included the ones hosted by founders of Spark Stanford and directors of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Catalyst. My warmest thanks for all the organizers of these events!

2024 Apr: Our article on ‘Measuring mechanical cues for modeling stromal matrix in 3D cell culture‘, by Linda, Ossi, Arttu, and Juho, was published in Soft Matter [link]

2023 Dec: The Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation has awarded our laboratory a project grant related to chemotherapy and biomechanics: ‘Toward enhanced drug efficacy in breast cancer by micromechanical analysis’ [link]. We gratefully acknowledge the foundation’s contribution.

2023 Sep: Our co-authored article ‘Fibrin stiffness regulates phenotypic plasticity of metastatic breast cancer cells‘ has been accepted for publication in Advanced Healthcare Materials by Wiley [link]. Congratulations Arttu and Ossi in this group, as well as collaborators, especially Maria and Pauliina!

2023 Apr: We thank Spark Finland for inviting us to join Stanford Drug Discovery Symposium. Juho represented our MechScopy project in the symposium and the related events in University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Catalyst, Stanford Biodesign, and Stanford Health Innovation Lab.

2023 Feb: Väinö starts as a PhD candidate and has obtained a two-year fellowship from the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Congratulations!

2022 Oct-Nov: Our Immunate project is represented in Cancer Partnering Day, Nordic Deeptech Business Summit, and Slush.

2022 Oct: Leon Petric has joined our team to carry out his master thesis about breast cancer spheroids.

2022 Aug: Our article on ‘Nanoscale tracking combined with cell-scale microrheology reveals stepwise increases in force generated by cancer cell protrusions’ is published in Nano Letters by American Chemical Society [link], and featured in Aalto press releases in English and in Finnish, as well as in AAAS EurekAlert, Mediuutiset, and Yle.

2022 May: Congratulations to Arttu for co-publishing an article as the second author in our collaboration with Manuguri’s and Kuzyk’s groups. The article on ‘DNA engineered hydrogels with light-adaptive plasmonic responses’ is published in Advanced Functional Materials by Wiley [link], and featured in an Aalto press release.

2022 Mar: We have been awarded Aalto Internal Seed Funding. Thank you for the support!

2022 Jan: The Immunate project is now a full member of Spark Finland. We are excited to work together!

2021 Dec: Congratulations to Mari for the postdoctoral fellowship award by Paulo Foundation about determination of how microenvironmental modification by cancer-associated fibroblasts drive the initiation and progression of breast cancer! [link]

2021 Dec: Congratulations to the Immunate team for being among the four finalists in the Health Pitching Competition of Y Science that is an official side event of Slush 2021! [link]

2021 Nov: Our co-authored article on ‘Compressive stress-mediated p38 activation required for ERα+ phenotype in breast cancer’ has been published in Nature Communications by Springer Nature [link].

2021 Sep: Sven Lanens represents the Immunate project in Nordic Innovation Fair in Copenhagen.

2021 Jun: The Immunate project is now a prospect member of Spark Finland. The Immunate members are excited to develop themselves and give their contribution to the Spark Finland and Spark Global network!

2021 Jan: We begin the collaborative Business Finland R2B project ‘Immunate’, focusing on personalized cancer immunotherapy.

2020 Oct: Juho provides a lecture to Lukema network that is an open community designed for all high school teachers and principals, who are focused on developing the teaching of mathematics and sciences in Finland [in Finnish: link]

2020 Sep: We won the Aalto Research Impact Award due to our studies of airborne transmission mode of COVID-19, in the collaborative COVID-19 consortium, led by V. Vuorinen [link]

2020 Sep: Our blog about the potential applications of cancer micromechanics for personalised medicine is online [in Finnish: link]

2020 Jun: Our co-authored article in the Aalto COVID-19 consortium on ‘Modelling aerosol transport and virus exposure with numerical simulations in relation to SARS-CoV-2 transmission by inhalation indoors’ has been published in Safety Science by Elsevier [link]

2020 Jun: Juho provides an interdisciplinary Zoom seminar, entitled ‘Measuring cell-affecting mechanical cues for quantifying progression of breast cancer’ at Karolinska Institute in the Dept. of of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology

2020 May: Juho’s co-authored article on ‘Tuning corneal epithelial cell adhesive strength with varying crosslinker content in silicone hydrogel materials’ has been published in Translational Vision Science & Technology by Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, ARVO [link]

2020 Mar: Juho has been awarded a fellow grant by the Instrumentarium Science Foundation [link; in Finnish: link]