The University of Turku
The University of Turku (UTU, www.utu.fi) is Finland’s second largest multidisciplinary university with over 22,000 students and over 3,300 staff. It is an internationally competitive university dedicated to high-level scientific research. Turku Bioscience (TBC) (https://bioscience.fi/about-us/) is an advanced core facility and research centre hosted jointly by University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University on the Turku campus. It provides high-end technologies, expertise, and services to academic, industrial, and commercially-oriented research projects. TBC researchers examine the molecular events underlying biological functions and identify how this information can be used to improve life quality. TBC has three main functions: to provide technology and research services, to offer advanced training and education in technologies related to the Centre’s core facilities, and to host leading basic research that relates to the Centre’s key technology and infrastructure areas.
Role within EURAS
UTU-TBC leads WP5 and participates in WP4 and WP7. UTU-TBC will identify dynamic neuronal response phenotypes that are specific to each of the 3 diseases studied. The most suitable phenotypic signatures then be used as readouts for drug repurposing screens using the Turku Screening Unit, an infrastructure unit at TBC which is member of the Drug Discovery and Chemical Biology platform of Biocentre Finland and a partner site of EU-Openscreen. The hits identified by the screens will be validated in multiple alternative models for each RASopathy available to the consortium, and provided to the remaining consortium partners for further proof-of-concept validation.
