Name:
Tarja Sironen
EDENext Group membership:
RBD
Supervisor or Team Leader: Heikki Henttonen
Institution: METLA and University of Helsinki, Finland
Member of project since: 2010
Short description of project activities:
I work as a post-doc in the team of prof. Heikki Henttonen. My first task is to work towards better understanding of hantavirus diversity in Europe. I am especially interested in searching for novel hantavirus species and/or strains in insectivores (shrews and moles).
My second task is to develop methods to recover arenavirus sequences from rodent samples. Serological evidence of arenavirus infection is frequently detected in European rodents, but arenavirus sequences are rarely recovered. The identification of strain variation in relation to host species is the necessary first step to understand the epidemiology of LCMV-comples viruses in Europe.
In addition to virus discovery, I also work with human cases of Puumala-virus infection in projects aiming towards understanding the pathogenesis of the infection and towards better diagnostics.
Main skills:
- Molecular biology, especially (RT-)PCR and sequencing
- Virus cultures
- Cell biology, especially immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization
- Phylogenetic analysis
Are you willing to help other colleagues in EDENext, and if so in what fields or activities:
Yes.