Members

Johan Björkegren	Johan Björkegren Group Leader Associate Professor of Molecular Medicine, Karolinska Institutet Senior Scientist of the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation Professor of Molecular Pathology, EU-funded part-time professorship, Tartu University Founder, Clinical Gene Networks AB Founder and Medical Adviser, DNA-Guide Europe AB
Arno Ruusalepp	Arno Ruusalepp I am staff surgeon at Tartu University Hospital performing most of adult cardiac surgery at our department. Areas of my surgical expertise involve CABG, OPCAB, MIDCAB, aortic and mitral valve repair, aortic valve and aortic surgery via ministernotomy, aortic surgery and AF surgery. My research interests involve myocardial protection, mitochondrial function in heart diseases and genetics of coronary artery disease. . Positions and Honors (chronological order) President of "Estonian Society of Cardiac Surgery" since 2007 Member of European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery since 2002 Member of Estonian Surgeons Society since 1997
Josefin Skogsberg	Josefin Skogsberg Associate Professor Main focus: Identifying gene regulatory networks responsible for atherosclerosis regression using a mouse model with human like hypercholesterolemia.
Mingmei Shang	Ming Mei Shang Post-doc The major theme of my research focus on validating the key gene nodes in gene networks using mouse models of atherosclerosis
Raili Ermel	Raili Ermel PhD-student, MD, first year resident of cardiovascular surgery Graduated from University of Tartu, Faculty of Medicine, 2010 Involved in STARNET project from 2008: recruiting patients (filling consent forms, dealing with blood and tissue-samples), managing the clinical database.
Heli Järve	Heli Järve Vascular Surgeon, MD, Carotid lesion sampling I graduated from medical faculty of University of Tartu in 2000 and thereafter specialized on cardiovascular surgery. Starting in 2006, I am working at the Tartu University Hospital as a vascular surgeon. I find the carotid surgery as an interesting field including various vascular operations area.
Cecilia Cedergren	Cecilia Cedergren Biomedical student last year I am currently working on my Bachelor thesis in the Cardiovascular Genomics group. My primary project is to generate a mouse model by breeding and backcrossing with our athero-prone mice with EDG1 knock out mouse in order to investigate the role of EDG1in atherosclerosis development.

PhD-students and candidates

Hassan Foroughi Asl	Hassan Foroughi Asl Bioinformatic and System Biology Risk enrichment analysis of groups of functionally associated genes to a given complex disease using GWAS.
Husain Talukdar	Husain Ahammad Talukdar Computational biologist, network inference.
Kati Sild	Kati Sild Medical student, endothelial RNA isolation
Aet Saar	Aet Saar Medical student, Carotid sampling, patient characteristics, carotid lesion preparation
Simon Jonsson	Simon Jonsson MD, Databases maintenance and master thesis
Tiia Tooming	Tiia Tooming Technician - RNA and DNA isolations, cell culturing
Anamika Jain	Anamika Jain Technician - maternal leave
Jaagup Truusalu	Jaagup Truusalu Medical student, Endothelial RNA isolation from CAD patient tissues
Henri Kaljumäe	Henri Kaljumäe Medical student - patient characterization of STARNET cohort