Saara Laitinen

Saara Laitinen runs an interdisciplinary team of scientists in Finnish Red Cross Blood Service having strong expertise in both stem and blood cell biology. Her molecular interest has been in lipids, regulation of lipid metabolism and membranes. Special interest has been in immunomodulation and active resolution of inflammation by lipid mediators (LM) and specialized pro-resolving mediators (SPM). Saara has over 15 years of activity in extracellular vesicle (EV) research, and she is one of the pioneers in Finland to study intercellular communication and immunomodulation by EVs. Her team has developed isolation, purification and analytical methods especially for blood cell derived EVs. This has led to novel products for research use only but ultimately the aim is to develop novel therapeutics from blood and up-scalable production processes for clinical grade EVs. She is one of the PIs in GeneCellNano, Flagship of Academy of Finland and currently national representative in EU-COST network of EU-RESOLVE.