BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – A key executive for Blondin Bioscience LLC is a collaborator on a prestigious grant awarded by the Academy of Finland that will aid in the study of breast cancer therapies.
Dr. Katri Selander, founder and chief scientific officer of the Birmingham-based biotech startup, is a collaborator on the three-year, $474,000 grant awarded to Dr. Johanna Tuomela, who is with the University of Turku, one of the largest universities in Finland.
Dr. Tuomela studies the role of inflammasomes, a component of the innate immune system, and a protein called TLR9 in bisphosphonate responses in bone tissue and breast cancer. The grant may help identify patients that benefit most from bisphosphonates, a class of drugs that was initially used for osteoporosis but is now also used as adjuvant treatment in breast cancer.

