CMP Research Centre builds the foundations of future medicine

What is smaller than a pencil dot on paper yet contains two metres of material inside it?
The answer is the cell nucleus. A hundred nuclei would fit along a one-millimetre line. And because each nucleus houses two metres of DNA, a millimetre-long row of nuclei contains 200 metres of DNA: roughly the distance Usain Bolt covered in his 19.19‑second world-record run.

This is the scale at which Senior Research Fellow Minna-Liisa Änkö, Associate Professor Teemu Ihalainen and other CMP researchers work. Their studies focus on the cell’s molecular processes, how cells function and how molecules interact. And there is certainly no shortage of molecules to study because a single cell contains tens of millions of protein molecules alone.

Inside every cell, countless interactions occur simultaneously and in competition with one another. Through these interactions, the cell makes fundamental, even existential decisions: What type of cell should I become? What actions should I take? Should I live or die?

“Sometimes it seems impossible that organised activity could arise from a mixture packed with so many different molecules. Molecules are not thinking entities. They simply move, collide and react with one another through thermal motion,” Ihalainen says.

And yet it works. Order emerges from chaos. Cells form functional tissues, and tissues form functioning organisms, including human beings.

Accordingly, the research at CMP spans everything from individual molecules to whole organisms and their physiology. Molecules are studied within cellular environments, tissues, and model organisms such as zebrafish. This is crucial because a molecule’s environment profoundly affects its behaviour. Just as people act differently alone than in a crowded room, molecules behave differently depending on their surroundings. That is why studying a single molecule in a test tube can never tell the whole story.

You learn more when health is your perspective

The value of studying phenomena at the smallest scales can be illustrated with an everyday example.

“If a car breaks down, you need to know what its parts are and which one needs replacing in order to fix it. In the same way, we are trying to understand how organisms are built,” Änkö explains.

Photo: Jonne Renvall/Tampere University

Beyond the molecular scale, an essential dimension of CMP’s work is its focus on health. The researchers aim to understand what happens under normal, healthy conditions when everything functions as it should.

“You can approach research from the perspective of disease, but understanding what happens in typical, healthy circumstances is often what yields the most insight. That knowledge also helps us recognise what goes wrong in pathological conditions. It deepens our understanding of diseases,” Änkö points out.

This understanding supports the treatment of illnesses and injuries as well. Even for commonly used medicines, the exact mechanisms of action are not always fully understood. Traditionally, drug development has focused more on whether a medication helps the patient recover than on how the drug works. As a result, many treatments come with a variety of side effects.

“I hope we can genuinely engage in rational design here and truly understand how everything functions. With that mechanistic understanding, we could have a repertoire of options ready when something needs to be repaired,” Änkö explains.

“Exactly. What we are missing is a foundation, an understanding. We still do not know enough about cells and their processes. That is why we cannot yet design, for example, a biomaterial to treat spinal cord injuries that would support neuronal growth and reconnection. It is like building with Lego bricks: you need to construct the first layer before you can add windows or put on the roof,” Ihalainen adds.

A deeper understanding of these cellular and molecular processes would also help us predict and prevent diseases. It could make it possible to identify biological markers that reveal, for instance, a developing cancer, allowing precisely targeted treatments to be administered early. And because the underlying processes would be known, individual differences could be identified more clearly, enabling the selection of treatments best suited to each patient.

Research results are not the only societal benefit

In addition to studying molecular interactions, the research centre also focuses on interaction between its research groups. There is great value in being able to examine the same phenomenon through different tools and perspectives. When the findings from various researchers are brought together, each viewpoint helps bring the bigger picture a little closer to clarity.

“Bioscientific research is methodologically very broad. It brings together multiple fields including biology, chemistry, physics, computational sciences, medicine, and engineering. No one can master such a vast range alone, which is why collaboration is essential. We rely on the expertise of other groups to help answer our research questions,” Ihalainen says.

Photo: Jonne Renvall/Tampere University

The foundation of the CMP Research Centre is basic research. Alongside their scientific aims, the researchers also hope to highlight the value of basic research itself and the people doing it.

Ihalainen regrets the commonly held view that basic research is merely pointless tinkering. Society often pursues the next major innovation – the next Nokia – as well as new commercial applications, without recognising that the benefits of basic research typically appear over time spans of 15 to 20 years. Behind every application, including the mobile phone, lies decades of fundamental research.

COVID‑19 vaccines are a prime example.

“It is often claimed that the vaccines were developed in 18 months, but that simply is not true. RNA vaccines had been quietly researched and refined for 20 to 30 years. When the moment came and a silver bullet was needed, long‑term basic research made rapid application possible,” Änkö says.

The COVID vaccines also illustrate another crucial point: we cannot predict what we will need in the future. That is why we must prepare for unknown challenges, making it one of the most important roles of basic research.

“We are also training the next generation of researchers. What could broaden knowledge and expertise more effectively than solving difficult, fundamental research problems? Research findings are not the only societal benefit because training skilled, insightful scientists is one as well,” Ihalainen adds.

“We are moving forward in the classical way by steadily accumulating knowledge. Human civilisation and the technologies we rely on today have been built through this approach, which is probably why it remains such a highly effective model, Ihalainen says.