Speakers

Michael J.G. Farthing
Professor Michael Farthing is Principal of St George’s, University of London. He graduated from the University Collage Hospital Medical School in London in 1972. After a training post in Cambridge he was appointed honorary lecturer at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. During a few years he also held positions as visiting lecturer in India, Boston and Costa Rica, but returned to St Bartholomew’s in 1983. In 1990 he was appointed to a Professorship in Gastroenterology. His major research interests include the pathogenesis of intestinal infection and inflammation, especially concerning Helicobacter and GI cancer, and enterotoxin-mediated diarrhea. Farthing is an editorial board member of several international gastroenterology journals. He has also taken an active interest in fraud and misconduct in biomedical research, and he held the chairman position at COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) between 1998 and 2003. He is Vice Chair and a member of the Board of the recently launched UK Panel for Health and Biomedical Research Integrity.

Mark Johnson
I was born is Seattle, Washington and lived on Puget Sound (similar to the Turku Archipelago). Moved to Southern California in 1962; in high school my chemistry teacher said that "biochemistry" was the topic that was most interesting. I decided to become a marine biologist, but I was turned off by the terrible university teachers in biology (they all seemed to be drunk or on drugs) but I was impressed with my chemistry teacher. Anyway, my batchelor's and master's degrees were in chemistry from California State University, Fullerton; began Ph.D. studies at the Department of Chemistry, University of California, San Diego with Professor Russell F. Doolittle, focusing on bioinformatics before that word existed. In 1987, I moved to Birkbeck College, University of London to begin postdoctoral research with Professor Tom Blundell. I had obtained my own funding from the American Cancer Society and I was a United States Nato Fellow and Ramsay Memorial Fellow of University College London. In 1990, I became a research fellow of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, but in 1994 moved to the Center for Biotechnology at BioCity. Became acting professor at Åbo Akademi, Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacy in 1997, professor in 1999, and permanent professor in 2004. Now just need to stay alive long enough to reach retirement. The end.

Anders Laurén
Anders Laurén is the managing director of the Finnish recruit company Biotech Job Partner. The company offers recruitment services for leading companies in the area of pharmaceuticals, healthcare, biotechnology, functional food, medical diagnostics, medical communications, etc. Mr. Laurén is considered to be an expert of the job situation in biosciences in Scandinavia.

Paavo Löppönen
Paavo Löppönen is Director (Evaluation and Development) at the Academy of Finland. His responsibilities include strategies, evaluations of the state and quality of Finnish science, S&T foresight, and research ethics. He is also a member of the National Advisory Board of Research Ethics.

Michel Morange
Michel Morange is Professor of Biology at Université de Paris VI as well as at the École Normale Supérieure, where he is Director of the Centre Cavaillès for the Study of the History of Science. He was born on August the 23rd 1950 in Limoges (France). In 1971 he began to work at the Pasteur Institute, where he in 1978 graduated with a PhD in Enzymology. At the same time, he studied Philosophy at the University Paris X, where he defended a second PhD in History and Epistemology of Molecular Biology. Since then Michel Morange has pursued a career both in Life Sciences (molecular and cellular biology, development biology) and in History and Philosophy. He has also published several books, eg. “A History of Molecular Biology” and “The Misunderstood Gene”.

Yvonne Rosenberg
Yvonne Rosenberg was born in Australia, where she originally worked as a high school teacher. By chance, she visited an immunology conference, became fascinated and quit her job teaching to study immunology. After receiving her Ph.D. at the Australian National University, she worked at the National Institutes of Health on autoimmune and infectious diseases including Human and Simian Immunodeficiency Viruses. Over the last 10 years, Dr. Rosenberg has worked closely with the U.S. Army on HIV/AIDS research, pioneering underlining concepts in viral pathogenesis and working on several vaccine trials involving non-human primates. More recently she has been involved in the development of a nerve agent bioscavenger. Dr. Rosenberg is also the founder and Chief Scientific Officer a new start-up biotech company, ProCell Corporation.

Nicholas Steneck
Nicholas Steneck is Professor of History at the University of Michigan and a consultant at the Office of Research Integrity, HHS. Professor Steneck has published articles on the history of research misconduct policy, the use of animals in research, classified research and academic freedom, and the role of values in university research. In recognition of his work on research integrity and the history of science, he was made a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1992.

Timo Veromaa
Timo Veromaa, M.D., Ph.D., President and CEO of Biotie Therapies Corp.
Timo Veromaa completed his M.D. degree at the University of Turku, where he also finished his Ph.D. thesis in immunology and then continued his research career as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. Since 1994 he has been working in the biotech and pharma industry both in Finland and in the United States: Collagen Corporation, Schering Oy, and Biotie, where he was appointed President and CEO in May 2005.

Eero Vuorio
Professor Eero Vuorio, the chancellor of the University of Turku, holds the chair of the National Advisory Board on Research Ethics in Finland. Chancellor Vuorio received his M.D. and medical doctorate at the University of Turku, got his postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago and has been a visiting professor at the The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and a researcher at the Houston Medical Center, at the University of Texas. He has served on the Board of the Academy of Finland and chaired the Research Council for Health in 1998-2003. Since 2002, Vuorio has been a delegate to the Council of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and currently holds its chair. In addition, he has had several national and international expert tasks. In 2004, the minister of education Tuula Haatainen, invited Eero Vuorio to head a working group on research careers in Finland. He also runs a research group on the Molecular Genetics of Cartilage Collagens at the University of Turku.