About
The research actitivies are managed by the PIs of the six research groups at PSL. Besides the post-doctoral researchers, senior researchers, and PhD students, we also host a varying number of visiting researchers/professors and MSc students especially within our own programmes in Drug Development and Medical Technology (FM) & Pharmacy (Provisor), as well as Drug Discovery & Development (UTU) and Biomedical Imaging (UTU & ÅAU) as well as ERASMUS and other interns.
Principal Investigators (Group Leaders)
Pharmaceutical Develoment
Head of Discipline (Pharmacy)
Tel + 358 2 215 3255
email jessica.rosenholm@abo.fi
Dr. Outi Salo-Ahen
Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Head of BSc (Pharm.) Education
Tel +358 2 215 4009
email outi.salo-ahen@abo.fi

Prof. Tapani Viitala
Novel Drug Formulations
50% University of Helsinki
Tel + 358 50 415 4529
email tapani.viitala@abo.fi

Dr. Anne Filppula
Senior Lecturer in Pharmacy Head of MSc (Pharm.) Education
Tel + 358 50 340 1124
email anne.filppula@abo.fi
Assoc. Prof. Hongbo Zhang
Tel +358 2 215 4009
email hzhang@abo.fi
Dr. Xiaoju Wang
Academy of Finland Research Fellow
2020-2025 (20% affiliated with Natural Materials Technology)
email xiaoju.wang@abo.fi
Affiliated Group Leaders/PIs
Prof. Niklas Sandler Chief Technology Officer at Nanoform
Dr. Tuomas Näreoja, Assistant Professor, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Senior researchers/Postdocs
Dr. Kuldeep Bansal
Dr. Xiaoyu Xu
Dr. Jixiang Wang
Dr. Neeraj Prabhakar
Dr. Özge Karadas
Dr. Mirja Palo
Dr. Xue Zhang
Dr. Parthiban Marimuthu
Dr. Chang Liu
Dr. Rajendra Bhadane
Dr. Fadak Howaili
Dr. Mijanur Rahman
Entrepreneur in Residence (Commercial Lead) Sebastian Soidinsalo // Jasmine PRO
Visiting Professors: Yonghai Feng and Minjia Meng, from Jiangsu University, China
Lecturers (in addition to above)
Ulla-Mari Parkkisenniemi-Kinnunen, FaD (Akademilektor)
Anne Eriksson, farmaceut, FM (Universitetslärare)
Johan Nyman, DI, FM (Universitetslärare)
PhD Students
Rawand Abdulrahman, M.Sc. (Pharm.)
Ida Alanko, M.Sc. (Pharm.Sci.)
Yu Chen, M.Med. (Surgery)
Fanny Frejborg, M.Sc.(Drug Discovery & Development)
Xiwen Geng, M.Sc. (Pathogen Biology)
Wali Inam, M.Sc. (Drug Discovery & Development)
Oliver Koivisto, M.Sc. (Genetics)
Johan Nyman, M.Sc.(Chem. Eng. & Pharm. Sci.)
Xiaodong Ma, M.Sc. (Organic Chemistry)
Alaa Mahran, M.Sc.(Pharm.)
Rathna Mathiyalagan M.Sc.(Chem.)
Dhayakumar Rajan Prakash, M.Sc. (Nano. Med.)
Govardhanam Narayana Prakirth, M.Sc. (BIMA)
Meixin Ran, M.Sc. (Pharm. Sci.)
Sara Rosenberg, M.Sc.(Pharm.)
Atefeh Saadabadi, M.Sc.
Erica Sjöholm M.Sc.(Pharm.Sci)
Anna Slita, M.Sc.(Bio)
Jiaqi Yan, M. Sc. (Pharm.)
Wu Yang, MMed (Clinical Medicine)
Yonghui Wang, M. Sc. (Pharm, Cell Biology)
Yu Zhang, M.Sc. (Med.)
Wenhui Zhou, M.Med.
Pengzhen Zhuang, M.Sc. (Mater Sci and Engineer)
Ezgi Özliseli, M.Sc. (BIMA)
Docents
Mia Bengtström (Pharma Industry Finland) - Docent in Industrial Pharmaceutical Research and Pharmacovigilance
Pirjo Tajarobi (AstraZeneca) - Docent in Industrial Pharmaceutical Technology
Mervi Vasänge (OrionPharma) - Docent in Industrial Preclinical Drug Development
Adyary Fallarero (ThermoFischer) - Docent in Bioassays and Biomolecular Screening
Outi Salo-Ahen (ÅAU) - Docent in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Drug Design
Petri Ihalainen (MetGen) - Docent in Printing Technologies in Fabrication of Drug Delivery Systems
Malena Skogman (UniHelsinki) - Docent in Pharmaceutical Microbiology
Tapani Viitala (UniHelsinki) - Docent in Pharmaceutical Surface Chemistry and Biophysics
Björn Södergård (Sveriges läkarförbund) - Docent in Social Pharmacy and Pharmacoeconomics
Carina Stenfors (Orion Pharma) - Docent in Drug Research
Niklas Sandler (Nanoform, Curify) - Docent in Advanced Pharmaceutical Technologies
ÅAU Honorary Doctor & Adjunct Professor (Drug Development and Diagnostics) 2016 - 2018
Thomas Rades, University of Copenhagen
M.Sc. students
Various MSc students especially from our own Master's programme in Drug Development & Medical Technology (from 2021 MSc in Pharmacy) as well as from the joint MSc programme in Biomedical Imaging between University of Turku (UTU) and Åbo Akademi University as well as Drug Discovery and Development (UTU) take part in our activities.
Alumni & Visiting researchers
Current:
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Salim Baali, Department of Ecology and Environmental Engineering of Guelma University, Algeria (2022)
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Ceren Celik, ERASMUS intern, İzmir Institute of Technology, Turkey (2021-22)
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Behice Süren, ERASMUS intern, İzmir Katip Celebi University, Turkey (2021-22)
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Jovana Degenek, Faculty of Technology, University of Novi Sad, Serbia, HPC-Europa3 guest researcher
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Marcela Rivera, MSc. Internship, University of Turku (Biomedical imaging) (2021-22)
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Şerife Beyza Türe, MSc. Internship, Bülent Ecevit University, Erasmus, Turkey (2021)
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Aliaa Ali, MSc thesis worker, MSc programme in Drug Discovery and Development (UTU) (2021-)
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Alaa Ahmed Abd El-rhman, Teaching and research assistant, Pharmaceutics Department, Faculty of Pharmacy, Assiut University, Egypt (2021-)
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Oskar Backman, MSc thesis worker at Natural Materials Technology (2021-)
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Sofia Lisina, visiting PhD student (Pharm.) SPCPU, Russia (2019-)
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Akmal Nipu, MSc thesis worker (ÅA/Bioimaging)
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Anand Kalgudi, MSc thesis worker, UTU / Bioinformatics
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Akash James, MSc thesis worker (UTU / Biomedical Science, Medicinal and Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry) (2021-)
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Lilly Holm, MSc thesis worker (2019-)
PhD Graduates (and their LinkedIn pages):
Olli Salin (2011)
Malena Skogman (2012)
Daniela Karlsson (2013)
Mohit Narwal (2014)
Didem Sen Karaman (2016)
Diti Desai (2016)
Eva von Haartman (2017)
Mirja Palo (2017)
Suvi Manner (2017)
Hossein Vakili (2018)
Neeraj Prabhakar (2018)
Emrah Yildir (2018)
Tina Gulin-Sarfraz (2019)
Zehua Liu (co-supervised, 2019)
Henrika Wickström (2020)
Heidi Öblom (2021)
Chang Liu (2022)
Alumni:
Aliaa Ali, summer intern, MSc programme in Drug Discovery and Development (UTU) (2021)
Jasmin Pyrhönen, MSc thesis worker (2020-21)
Ronja Hellman, MSc thesis worker (2019-21)
Linda Wilkman, MSc (Pharm.Sci) thesis worker (2017-21)
Kia Peura, MSc (Pharm.Sci.) thesis worker (2020-21)
Lisa Lindfors, MSc (Pharm.Sci.) thesis worker (2020-21)
Anna-Mari Haapanen-Saaristo, laboratory intern, Biomedical Imaging MSc programme (2020-2021)
Visiting Prof. Sergey Filippov, Harvard University, USA (2019-2021)
Paulina Frolovaité, MSc thesis worker, UTU/ Bioinformatics MSc programme (2020-2021)
Fadak Howaili, visiting PhD student (Nanobiotechnology), Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran (2019-2020)