SD-EC Member Junior Saara Wittfooth Biography
Dr. Saara T. WITTFOOTH
Assistant Professor of Biotechnology
Department of Life Technologies
Faculty of Technology
20014 University of Turku
Finland
E-mail: saara.wittfooth@utu.fi
Dr. Saara Wittfooth is Assistant Professor of Biotechnology at the Department of Life Technologies, the University of Turku, Finland. She is the leader of the cardiovascular disease diagnostics research of the Department. She received her PhD in molecular biotechnology and diagnostics in 2009. In 2017 she conducted research at Boston Children’s Hospital as a visiting Fulbright Senior Scholar.
Her research activities are related to the development of highly sensitive immunoassays for biomarkers of various diseases and nucleic acid tests for pathogen detection. In the focus of her research interests are novel cardiac biomarkers, such as long forms of cardiac troponin T, free PAPP-A and cardiac troponin autoantibodies / macrotroponin, and special immunoassays for the detection of these molecules. In 2019 she received the EFLM Cardiac Marker Award for remarkable scientific work in the field of cardiovascular diseases.
She has previously served IFCC as the Chair of the IFCC Working Group on Standardization of PAPP-A. Currently she is involved in the IFCC Committee of Clinical Applications of Cardiac Bio-Markers and the IFCC Committee of Traceability in Laboratory Medicine. She has published over 30 publications in peer reviewed scientific journals, has given more than 30 oral and poster presentations in international congresses and has been listed as an inventor in 2 IVD-related patent applications.
She was a member of the Scientific Programme Committee and a session Chair for EuroMedLab Munich 2021. She has acted as the Principal Investigator and Scientific Coordinator for the EU FP7 ACUSEP project and as a Management Committee Member for EU COST action CliniMark. She has served as a funding applicant reviewer for Wellcome Trust. She is also a reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals such as Clinical Chemistry, Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, Clinical Biochemistry, Biomolecular Detection and Quantification, Scandinavian Journal of Clinical & Laboratory Investigation. She has been invited as a speaker in many national and international meetings and conferences such as AACC annual meeting 2006, IFCC WorldLab 2017 Durban, IFCC-EFLM EuroMedLab 2009 Amsterdam and 2021 Munich, LabMed 2004 Malmö and 2008 Helsinki.