Event Details

10^th December at 12:00
Onsite event
in Presidentti auditorium, BioCity
Autumn 2026 poster

Prof. Thomas Helleday, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
Targeting cancer by oncogenic trapping: From bench to clinical trials

Host: Jukka Westermarck (jukka.westermarck@utu.fi)

Coffee and sandwich served at 11:45, first come first serve!

Six PhD researchers and early-career postdocs are welcome to have lunch and discuss with Prof. Helleday after the seminar. This is a great possibility to learn hosting skills in a friendly environment and create connections for future. Everyone is welcome to join, BioCity Turku will offer the lunch.

If you got interested, please send an email to biocityturku@bioscience.fi

Thomas Helleday is a Professor of Chemical Biology in Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. In his research, he is focusing on exploiting the weaknesses of cancer cells in DNA repair and altered metabolism. His research group uses genetic tools and develops probes to study identified target proteins more closely. By selectively inhibiting DNA repair or proteins that are crucial for the growth of cancer cells, the researchers tailor new treatment methods against cancer.

Selected publications

Mortusewicz O, Haslam J, Gad H, Helleday T. Uracil-induced replication stress drives mutations, genome instability, anti-cancer treatment efficacy, and resistance. Mol Cell. 2025 May 15;85(10):1897-1906

Green AC, Marttila P, Kiweler N, …, Sandberg L, Frödin M, Moussay E, Slipicevic A, Letellier E, Paggetti J, Sørensen CS, Helleday T, Henriksson M, Meiser J. Formate overflow drives toxic folate trapping in MTHFD1 inhibited cancer cells. Nat Metab. 2023 Apr;5(4):642-659.

Marklund M, Schultz N, Friedrich S, Berglund E, Tarish F, Tanoglidi A, Liu Y, Bergenstråhle L, Erickson A, Helleday T, Lamb AD, Sonnhammer E, Lundeberg J. Spatio-temporal analysis of prostate tumors in situ suggests pre-existence of treatment-resistant clones. Nat Commun. 2022 Sep 17;13(1):5475

Michel M, Benítez-Buelga C, Calvo PA, …, Vilotijevic I, Kalderén C, Osorio A, Perona R, Stolz A, Stenmark P, Berglund UW, de Vega M, Helleday T. Small-molecule activation of OGG1 increases oxidative DNA damage repair by gaining a new function. Science. 2022 Jun 24;376(6600):1471-1476

General information

• Registration is not needed, participation list is circulated in the audience.
• If you are a student and later wish to get a certificate of attendance from the Frontier of Science seminars (BKEM1020; UTU), print out the seminar diary and after the seminar ask the BioCity coordinator to sign it https://seafile.utu.fi/d/44a70f80ac1e46a9ad0a/
• Please note that any audio or video recording of the seminars is strictly forbidden.
• Autumn 2026 image credits to Samuel Svärd: Whole mount immunofluorescent staining of the mouse retina. Image acquired on 3i CSU-W1 Spinning disk with 10x objective.