Professor Seija Grenman has a long history in
promoting women’s health issues both nationally and internationally. At the
national level, she has served as the President of the Finnish Cancer
Foundation 2010-2016 and the president of the Finnish Gynecological
Association  2015 - 2017. Professor
Grenman has also been an active member of the Nordic Society of Obstetrics and
Gynecology (NFOG), first serving as the Chairman of the Scientific Committee
and then as the Chairman of NFOG in 2006-2010. Since 2009 she has been a FIGO
Executive Board Member representing Finland as Vice President in 2015-2018. She
is an ex officio member of the FIGO Committees on Gynecologic Oncology and
Women´s Health and Human Rights (WHHR) as well as the Working Group on Violence
against Women. Her main interests in research are Ovarian Cancer and HPV. She
is the principal investigator at Turku University Hospital in two consortiums
studying ovarian cancer : a national OVCURE-consortium funded by the Finnish
Academy and  an EU-funded HERCULES
consortium. Since 1998 she has collaborated with professor Stina Syrjänen on
the Finnish Family HPV Study including 300 families and newborn babies.

Personalized therapy of Ovarian cancer

Ovarian
cancer research was started as a consortium at the University of Turku in 2009,
but has expanded in 2015 to a consortium supported by the Academy of Finland
and in 2016 to an EU-consortium consisting of 
8 research groups in Finland, Sweden, France and Italy. The main
objectives of the study are to comprehensively characterize high-grade serous
ovarian cancer ( HGS-OvCa) by intergrating and modelling clinical and
biological data (e.g. genetics, transcriptomics, protein binding, drug
screening) from primary, metastatic and relapsed tumors from various anatomical
sites of HGS-OvCa patients, and to establish combinatorial treatment modalities
that effectively kill HGS-OvCa tumor cell subpopulations. The projects have
been supported by the Academy of Finland, Finnish Cancer Foundation, EU-grant
and the Government Special Foundation to Turku University Hospital. 

The Finnish Family HPV Study

The Finnish
Family HPV study is a prospective cohort study conducted at the University of
Turku, Turku Finland. A total of 329 mother, 131 fathers and 331 new born
babies have been recruited to this study between 1998-2002 and the participants
have been followed up since then. The purpose of the study has been to evaluate
the transmission of HPV infection and to identify special risk groups for
persistent HPV infection among family members. Currently the work is focusing
on the effects of HPV-specific immunity on the outcome of HPV infections in
women and in early childhood.

Seija Grénman has experience on teaching for a number of years as a clinical teacher until 2010 and as a professor there after. She was nominated as the teacher of the year by medical students in 2001.