Arafath (Rafa) K. Najumudeen
EMBL Group Leader, Principle Investigator
Arafath (Rafa) Najumudeen obtained his Ph.D. in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Abankwa at Turku Bioscience working on mechanisms to target Ras protein clustering. In 2016, Rafa moved to CRUK Scotland Institute in the UK to pursue his postdoctoral studies, working on preclinical models of intestinal cancers in the lab led by Prof. Owen J. Sansom. His studies focused on defining the role of metabolic rewiring in colorectal cancer initiation and progression using state-of-the-art preclinical cancer models. He returned to Finland in 2022, having been awarded the Academy of Finland Research Fellowship. He was recently appointed as a FIMM-EMBL Group Leader at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, Helsinki. He runs the Metabolism and Stem Cell Biology Lab at FIMM and Institute of Biotechnology, HiLIFE, University of Helsinki.
Rafa is an affiliate Group Leader at Turku Bioscience, Turku and an affiliate scientist at the CRUK Scotland Institute, UK.
Tolga Sever
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Tolga Sever completed his PhD in Translational Oncology at Dokuz Eylul University and trained in Ömer Yilmaz's lab at MIT, USA, where his research focused on the energy metabolism of colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer stem cells, with the aim of enhancing chemotherapy effectiveness. He is currently investigating new factors and pathways involved in colonic stem cell differentiation to identify new therapeutic targets for colorectal cancer.
Shima Naddafi
Graduate Student
Shima received her bachelor’s degree in nursing and worked as a healthcare professional. She pursued her Master’s in Translational Medicine at the University of Helsinki and graduated in 2023. Shima did her thesis at Prof. Tom McWilliams lab on “Investigating the role of lipid dysfunction in mitophagy”. Passionate about cell biology and disease mechanisms, she joined the lab to pursue her Ph.D., where she will work on the metabolic rewiring of KRAS mutant colorectal cancer. Her doctoral project aims to identify novel metabolic vulnerabilities of colorectal cancer.
Shima is funded by the iCANDOC Doctoral Pilot Programme.
Myriam Sevigny
Graduate Student
Myriam completed her Master’s in cellular and molecular biology at the Laval University Oncology Research Center in Canada, dedicating two and a half years to studying drosophila genetics, epithelial polarity and cancer. She continued her scientific journey in the field of neuroscience, in which she worked for 4 years as a lab manager and research technician at the CERVO Brain Research Center, studying amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Upon relocating to Finland, she worked for the Genome Biology Unit (GBU) platform at the University of Helsinki for 3 years. At GBU, she was introduced to the fascinating world of gastrointestinal fibroblasts while collaborating with Saara Ollila’s research team. Myriam’s insatiable curiosity led her to pursue a PhD in Najumudeen lab, in co-direction with Dr Ollila. She aims to better understand the importance of stromal cells in the fight against colorectal cancer.
Myriam is funded by the iCANDOC Doctoral Pilot Programme.
Hao Li
Graduate Student/Laboratory Technical Assistant
Hao possesses a comprehensive educational foundation in the field of molecular biomedicine. She pursued her undergraduate studies in China, obtaining a Bachelor's degree in Clinical Medicine. Subsequently, she made the decision to relocate to the University of Helsinki and obtained a Master's degree in Neuroscience. Inspired by her studies, she decided to pursue a Ph.D., with a strong focus on this discipline. Drawing from her prior experience in conducting animal experiments and fueled by her fascination with the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms governing cell fate determination, Hao made the conscious choice to join the lab, where she would be dedicated to advancing research in the realm of colorectal cancer.
Akshatha Gowri
Graduate Student
Akshatha completed her Bachelor’s in Science and Bachelor’s in Education at NCERT, New Delhi, India. Akshatha obtained her Master’s in Medical Sciences degree from the Faculty of Medicine, Technion- Israel Institute of Technology. Here, for a period of 2 years, she worked on elucidating the interplay between the chemokine- ligand pathway CXCL9, CXCL10-CXCR3 and the PD1- PD-L1 axis in the context of anti-tumour immunity in melanoma. Her project lies between the interests of Najumudeen and Anna-Liisa Levonen-Harju’s group at the A.I Virtanen Institute of Molecular Sciences, University of Eastern Finland. She studies the role of the transcription factor NRF2 in anti-cancer immunity in lung cancer.
Previous Members
Nicholas Wijaya, Internship
Dinus Matas, Internship