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Tambet Teesalu

Professor of Nanomedicine
Tambet Teesalu is a Professor of  Nanomedicine and the head of the Laboratory of Precision and Nanomedicine at the University of Tartu, Estonia (www.cancerbiology.ee). His work focuses on systemic affinity targeting of malignant, cardiovascular and neurological diseases with homing peptides. Professor Teesalu's team uses in vivo peptide phage display to identify disease lesion-seeking homing peptides. The peptides are then coupled to molecular and nanoscale diagnostic and therapeutic payloads to increase their target accumulation and therapeutic index. Professor Teesalu received his PhD from University of Helsinki in 1999 for studies on the extracellular proteases in cell invasion and tissue remodeling. For his postdoctoral training, he joined the laboratory of Professor Erkki Ruoslahti at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla (USA) to work on identification of tumor homing peptides and characterization of vascular ZIP codes in vascular trees of normal organs. Selected awards and recognitions include the Susan Komen for the Cure Career Development Award (2010), ERC starting grant (2010), Wellcome Trust Senior International Fellowship (2010), EMBO Installation Grant (2010), Estonian National Prize in Medicine (2017), and University of Tartu Annual Research Award (2021).