Johanna Schleutker got her PhD in 1995 in University of Turku, Faculty of Medicine.The topic of her doctoral thesis was "Linkage disequilibrium is Salla disease; positioning of the sialic acid transport defect". She then moved to University of Tampere, and did her post doc in 1996-1998 in the Cancer Genetics research group of Professor Olli Kallioniemi. Her career continued in the US where she spent the years of 1999-2000 working as a research associate at the National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. During the NIH years, she studied genetics of familial prostate cancer in the group of Dr. Jeffrey M.Trent. After her return to Finland, Schleutker started her own research group in 2001 at the Insitute of Medical Technology, University of Tampere, and has ever since focused her studies on genetics and genetic susceptibility of prostate and breast cancer. Schleutker got a professorship in University of Tampere in 2008. In 2011 she started as a professor of medical genetics in University of Turku.

The Schleutker group "Genetic Predisposition to Cancer" is studying both breast and prostate cancer genetics, the main emphasis being on prostate cancer. Of all cancers, prostate cancer (PrCa) has been reported as one of the most heritable diseases: genetic factors have been estimated to account for 57% of the risk. The goal is to identify and characterize predisposing genes and variants, especially those affecting aggressive outcome, including treatment responses to therapies. Further, the aim is to develop tools for prognostic purposes, i.e. prognostic biomarkers. The group has identified many significant genomic risk regions, candidate genes and variants, which have been then further profiled and characterized by functional studies. The group has produced (by 2021) 12 PhD degrees and published over 190 original, peer-reviewed articles in international journals.

Genetics, cancer genetics, hereditary cancer, genomics, molecular biology.