Jaakko Arthur Kaprio - Biography#

Jaakko Kaprio, M.D., Ph.D. is a Research Director at the Institute for Molecular Medicine FIMM, University of Helsinki and was Professor of Genetic Epidemiology, University of Helsinki, Finland from 2001 until mandatory retirement in April 2020. He was the Director of Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in Complex Disease Genetics (2007-11). He held a five-year research professorship fully funded by the Academy of Finland from 2013 to 2017. The Academy Professorship research theme was on genetics, epigenetics and epidemiology of smoking and nicotine dependence. He was Director of FIMM from 10/ 2015 to 1/ 2018; FIMM is an EMBL-associated biomedical research institute focusing on personalized cancer therapies, large-scale genetics studies (such as the FinnGen project studying the genetic basis of disease among 500,000 genotyped Finns) and use of AI in digital pathology. Dr. Kaprio has worked in genetic epidemiology with a focus on behavioral risk factors of non-communicable disease. In particular, his work has been on the genetic and epigenetic basis of smoking, alcohol use, physical activity, sleep and obesity as well as on nicotine and alcohol addiction. He has worked with the Finnish Twin Cohort studies since 1976 and has been responsible for their expansion into younger cohorts with ongoing longitudinal studies. He has also worked with other population-based samples in Finland. He has engaged in extensive international collaborations, including multiple NIH and EU funded projects, with six currently funded projects. He is also funded through the Academy of Finland, Centre of Excellence in Complex Disease Genetics (2018-2025). He has served as President of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco European chapter, as President of the Behavior Genetics Association and as President of the International Society for Twin Studies. He has been active in cancer and tobacco-related NGOs in Finland. He has supervised over 50 PhD students.