Mart Saarma

Mart Saarma is a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and has served as its president since December 2024. He is also the research director, professor, and laboratory director at the HiLIFE Biotechnology Institute at the University of Helsinki. Saarma is a foreign member of several national academies, a member of Academia Europea, and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). His research group has characterized several receptors involved in nervous system development and homeostasis—specifically, those belonging to the GDNF family of neurotrophic factors—and has discovered a new neurotrophic factor, CDNF. Under his leadership, research is being conducted on the signal transduction and biological functions of ligands in the GDNF family and the CDNF/MANF family of neurotrophic factors in the endoplasmic reticulum. It was recently discovered that RNA modification is essential for neuronal survival. Mart Saarma is investigating the therapeutic potential of these proteins and their mimetics for various neurological diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease. Professor Saarma is the founder of several biotechnology companies, including Mobidiag, Herantis Pharma, Nanoform, and GeneCode.