IFCC Molecular Diagnostics Award for Significant Contributions toMolecular Diagnostics
IFCC Molecular Diagnostics Award for Significant Contributions
to Molecular Diagnostics
Sponsor: Abbott Molecular Diagnostics
Presented to: Prof. Olli Kallioniemi, MD, PhD
The International Federation of Clinical
Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC) is pleased and honoured to
announce that Professor Olli Kallioniemi, MD, PhD has been selected
to receive the 2008 IFCC Award for Significant Contributions to
Molecular Diagnostics. This award has been created to honour an
individual who has made unique contributions to the promotion and
understanding of Molecular Biology and its worldwide application in
Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine. Throughout his research
career, Professor Kallioniemi has successfully combined development
of technologies, cancer research and diagnostic development. His
research has contributed to the development of many new tools that
are now in wide-spread use throughout the world.
Professor Kallioniemi was trained at the University of Tampere,
Finland receiving an MD degree in 1984 and a PhD degree in 1988. He
received residency training in Clinical Chemistry (board
certification in 1991) with an initial research focus in flow
cytometry. During his career, he has been employed in various
research positions in the USA and Finland. For example, in 1996-
2002 he was Section Head at the National Human Genome Research
Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in
Maryland. In 1992, Professor Kallioniemi published the first report
describing the use of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) for
the detection of gene amplifications in breast cancer patients. A
second paper described the development of comparative genomic
hybridization (CGH) for the diagnosis of genetic alterations in
cancer and other diseases. In 1993 he applied the CGH technology to
the discovery of key genetic alterations in cancer. A key paper of
his describes a novel mechanism of disease progression and therapy
failure in prostate cancer and constitutes the first example where
a novel disease mechanism was discovered by CGH and the first time
gene amplifications were linked to therapy resistance in human
patients. Along with the discovery of CGH, Professor Kallioniemi is
globally recognized for the first description of the tissue
microarray (TMA) technology. This technology is now routinely used
by many molecular pathology laboratories worldwide.
Professor Kallioniemi is currently Director of the Institute of
Molecular Medicine at the University of Helsinki as well as
Director of the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in
Translational Genome-Scale Biology in the Universities of Turku
& Helsinki. Recent work has resulted in the development of cell
microarrays for RNA interference screening and in the discovery of
molecular mechanisms of prostate cancer, with both diagnostic and
therapeutic implications. Professor Kallioniemi was elected a
member of the Finnish National Academy of Sciences in 2005 and of
the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2006. He has
received several prestigious awards and grants, such as the Nordic
Anders Jahre Prize in 1998, NIH Director's lecture in 2000, Medal
of the Swedish Medical Society in 2003, EU Marie Curie Centre of
Excellence Grant, as well as the Harold G. Pritzker Memorial
Lecture in Laboratory Medicine at the University of Toronto in
2006. A prolific author, Professor Kallioniemi has authored or
coauthored 224 peer reviewed scientific articles, which have been
cited 20,336 times. He is on the editorial board of seven journals
and has participated in many committees at the EU and international
level, such as recently for the remarkable international project
for sequencing genomes of 50 cancer types.
The significant technological and translational impact of his work
also is demonstrated by his 15 international patents and 11 patent
applications, many of which are licensed for diagnostic
development.