Juuso Taskinen

Background

About Juuso Taskinen

I started my research career at Minerva Institute for Medical Research, where I began my career as a master’s thesis student in 2018. From then on, I studied membrane contact site proteins in endothelial cells under the supervision of Professor Vesa Olkkonen. My research focused on membrane contact site proteins in the oxysterol binding protein family, as well as ER tethering proteins VAPA and VAPB that participate in forming membrane contacts sites. We aimed to study how dysfunctional membrane contact sites affect lipid transport and more broadly what kind of role they could play in early atherogenesis. Bioinformatics has also been of great interest to me, which has led me to collaborate with my colleagues on multiple papers. Functional analysis of transcriptomics, proteomics and lipidomics have been my bread and butter during these collaborations, but I also enjoy finding new ways to plot these results in a concise and comprehensible manner. During my free time I enjoy lifting heavy things and then putting them back down at the gym, which has led to my hobbyist interest in nutritional and exercise science. Cooking for my friends and family is also very near and dear to me.