Seppo Yla-herttuala MD, PhD, FESC

Professor Seppo Ylä-Herttuala, MD, PhD, FESC, is a pioneer in cardiovascular gene therapy. He was the first in the world to apply adenoviral gene transfer to human arteries in 1995. Professor Ylä-Herttuala runs a world-leading laboratory in cardiovascular, bladder cancer, and malignant glioma gene therapy. The main focus of the research is on the development of new gene therapy approaches for cardiovascular diseases, brain and bladder cancers, and diseases caused by disturbances in vascular biology. Virus-derived gene transfer vectors, cloning of new treatment genes, and the use of genetic information for therapeutic purposes form the main research activities in his research group. Additionally, translational research and clinical phase I-III human studies are conducted with vectors and treatment genes developed in the group.

So far, the research group has conducted eight phase I/II/III clinical studies with vectors developed and produced in the National Virus Vector Laboratory(EU-EATRIS infrastructure) located in the A.I. Virtanen Institute, University of Eastern Finland. One of the products developed in his lab – adenoviral interferon-alpha gene therapy for bladder cancer – was approved for clinical use by the FDA in 2022. Prof. Yla-Herttuala has served as the President of the European Society for Gene and Cell Therapy – ESGCT (2010-2012) and as the Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Therapy, the flagship journal of the American Society for Gene and Cell Therapy -ASGCT (2015-2020). For his achievements, he has received Outstanding Achievement Awards from both ASGCT (2016) and ESGCT (2023), which are the most important distinctions of the ASGCT and ESGCT.