Tumour genetics researcher Lauri A. Aaltonen wins Anders Jahre Award

Professor Lauri A. Aaltonen is the winner of the 2024 Anders Jahre Award for Medical Research. The Anders Jahre Award is a prestigious Nordic medical prize awarded by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Oslo. This year, the Award, worth NOK 1 million, will be shared between two researchers. The other winner is Professor Thomas Helleday from Karolinska Institutet. Professor Aaltonen and Professor Helleday share the Award for their discoveries of mechanisms that contribute to cancer development in humans.

Professor Aaltonen is an internationally recognised cancer researcher based at the University of Helsinki Faculty of Medicine. In 2002–2007, 2008–2017 and 2019–2023, Aaltonen held the position of Academy Professor. Currently, he heads the Finnish Centre of Excellence in Tumour Genetics Research with funding from the Research Council of Finland.

Aaltonen is one of the world’s best-known researchers in cancer genetics. His research group studies mutations associated with cancer development and progression, and performs data analysis and modelling. The tumour genomics research group particularly focuses on hereditary tumour susceptibility and the mechanisms of colorectal cancer and uterine leiomyoma. The results of this research have been put into practice particularly in the prevention of hereditary colorectal cancer.

The Aaltonen-led Centre of Excellence in Tumour Genetics Research aims to understand how the genome works and to bring genomic medicine into practice. The Centre makes use of existing international genome databases and creates and analyses genome data also from its own tumour sample material. Aaltonen is therefore particularly grateful to all the patients who have participated in the studies.

Aaltonen received the Anders Jahre Award for Young Scientists in 2000. Previous Finnish winners of the Anders Jahre Award for Medical Research are Academicians of Science Kari Alitalo (2010), Sirpa Jalkanen (2005), Irma Thesleff (1999) and Albert de la Chapelle (1989) and professors Mårten Wikström (1996), Kari Kivirikko (1984), Esko Antero Nikkilä (1979) and Arvo Oksala (1970).

The award is named after Anders Jahre (1891–1982), a Norwegian shipowner, entrepreneur and philanthropist, who donated funds to the University of Oslo to establish the Anders Jahre Foundation for the Promotion of Science. Two prizes are awarded each year: the Anders Jahre Senior Medical Award (main prize) and the Anders Jahre Award for Young Scientists. The Anders Jahre Award for Medical Research was bestowed for the first time in 1960.