Curriculum vitae of Kalle Saksela

Chief Scientific Officer
Prof., M.D., Ph.D. Kalle M. Saksela

Born September 10, 1962 in Philadelphia, USA.

Kalle Saksela is Professor of Virology at the University of Helsinki. Dr. Saksela is an accomplished virologist trained in the world’s leading research laboratories, and has several publications in first-rank journals like Nature, Cell, EMBO Journal, Journal of Experimental Medicine, and Journal of Virology. His research has focused on molecular pathogenesis of AIDS and cell biology of HIV infection. In 1993 Dr. Saksela was the first to report the strong correlation between disease progression and the rate of HIV replication in blood cells of infected patients. A major interest area of his subsequent studies has been interactions between viral and host cell proteins. In addition to studying natural protein complexes Dr. Saksela has developed a successful line of research related to protein bioengineering aimed at improving binding strength and specificity in protein interactions with therapeutic and diagnostic potential.

Education:

MD, 1989 (University of Helsinki [LL])

PhD, 1989 (University of Helsinki [LKT])

Academic history:

2005- Professor of Virology and Chairman of Department of Virology, University of Helsinki.

2003- Member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.

1996-2005: Professor of Molecular Medicine. Institute for Medical Technology. University of Tampere. Finland.

1996-2000 Adjunct Professor associated with the laboratory of James Darnell Jr. The Rockefeller University, New York.

1994-1996 Assistant Professor. The Rockefeller University, New York.

1991-1994: Postdoctoral Fellow with David Baltimore at the Rockefeller University, New York.

1991-1991: Postdoctoral Fellow with David Baltimore at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA.

1989-1990: Research Fellow, Department of Virology, University of Helsinki.

1984-1989: MD/PhD student with Kari Alitalo at the Department of Virology, University of Helsinki

20 selected publications

Hiipakka M and Saksela K: Versatile retargeting of SH3 domain binding by modification of non-conserved loop residues. (2007). FEBS Letters 581: 1735-1741.

Kärkkäinen S, Hiipakka M, Wang JH, Kleino I, Vähä-Jaakkola M, Renkema GH, Liss M, Wagner R, and Saksela, K: Identification of preferred protein interactions via phage-display of the human SH3 proteome. (2006). EMBO Reports, 7: 186-191

Pulkkinen K, Renkema GH, Kirchhoff F, and Saksela K: HIV-1 Nef associates with PAK2 in a p21-GTPase-dependent dynamic activation complex within lipid rafts. (2004). J. Virol. 78: 12773-12780.

Fujiwara K, Poikonen K, Aleman L, Valtavaara M, Saksela K, and Mayer BJ: A single-chain antibody/epitope system for functional analysis of protein-protein interactions. (2002). Biochemistry 41: 12729-12738.

Renkema GH, Pulkkinen K, and Saksela K: Cdc42/Rac1-mediated activation primes PAK2 for superactivation by tyrosine phosphorylation. (2002). Mol. Cell. Biol. 22: 6719-6725.

Manninen A and Saksela K: Nef interacts with inositol trisphosphate receptor to activate calcium signaling in T cells. (2002). J. Exp. Med 195: 1023-1032.

Hiipakka M, Huotari P, Manninen A, Renkema GH, and Saksela K: Inhibition of cellular functions of HIV-1 Nef by artificial SH3 domains. (2001). Virology 286: 152-159.

Manninen A, Renkema GH, and Saksela K: Synergistic activation of NFAT by HIV-1 Nef and the Ras/MAPK pathway. (2000). J. Biol. Chem. 275:16513-16517

Renkema GH, Manninen A, Harris MPG, Mann DA, and Saksela K: Identification of the Nef-associated serine kinase as the p21-activated kinase-2. (1999). Curr. Biol., 9: 1407-1410.

Hiipakka M, Poikonen K, and Saksela K: SH3 domains with high affinity and engineered ligand specificities targeted to HIV-1 Nef. (1999). J. Mol. Biol. 293: 1097-1106.

Vesanen M, Markowitz M, Cao Y, Ho DD, and Saksela K: Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 mRNA splicing pattern in vivo is determined by the proportion of newly infected cells. (1997). Virology 236: 104-109.

Perelson AS, Essunger P, Cao Y, Vesanen M, Hurley A, Saksela K, Markowitz M, and Ho DD: Decay characteristics of HIV-1-infected compartments during combination therapy. (1997). Nature 387: 188-205.

Vesanen M, Stevens C, Rubinstein P, Taylor PE, and Saksela K: Stability in controlling viral replication identifies long-term nonprogressors as a distinct subgroup among human immunodeficiency virus type 1-infected persons (1996). J. Virol. 70: 9035-9040.

Lee CH, Saksela K, Mirza U, Chait B, and Kuriyan J: Crystal structure of the conserved core of HIV-1 Nef complexed with a Src-family SH3 domain. (1996). Cell 85: 931-942.

Lee CH, Leung B, Lemmon MA, Zheng J, Cowburn D, Kuriyan J, and Saksela K: A single amino acid in the SH3 domain of Hck determines its high affinity and specificity in binding to HIV-1 Nef protein. (1995). EMBO J. 14: 5006-5015.

Saksela K, Stevens CE, Taylor PE, Rubinstein P, and Baltimore D: HIV-1 messenger RNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells as an early marker of risk for progression to AIDS. (1995). Ann. Intern. Med. 123: 641-648.

Saksela K, Cheng G, and Baltimore D: Proline-rich (PxxP) motifs in HIV-1 Nef bind to SH3 domains of a subset of Src kinases and are required for the enhanced growth of Nef+ viruses but not for downregulation of CD4. (1995). EMBO J. 14: 484-491.

Chen B, Saksela K, Andino R, and Baltimore D: Distinct modes of HIV proviral latency revealed by superinfection of non-productively infected cell lines with recombinant luciferase-encoding viruses. (1994). J. Virol. 68: 654-660.

Saksela K, Stevens C, Rubinstein P, and Baltimore D: Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 mRNA expression in peripheral blood cells predicts disease progression independently of the numbers of CD4+ lymphocytes. (1994). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 91: 1104-1108.

Saksela K, Muchmore E, Girard M, Fultz P, and Baltimore D: High viral load in lymph nodes and latent human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in peripheral blood cells of HIV-1-infected chimpanzees. (1993). J. Virol. 67: 7423-7427.

Issued patents:

Saksela, K, & Baltimore, D, Methods for the prognosis and monitoring of AIDS, US patent no, 5,674,680

Saksela, K, & Hiipakka, M: Methods and materials for generating SH3 domains with tailored binding properties, US patent no, 6,794,144.

Saksela, K: Method for detection of Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Finnish patent no. 120376