Dr Haapaniemi started her group at NCMM in January 2019, and has capped off a successful first year with positive outcomes for her funding applications.
Dr Haapaniemi was awarded a 'Young Research Talent' award from the Research Council of Norway (RCN). The RCN annual funding awards are highly prestigious and competitive, with nearly 3000 applications from a diverse range of research fields across Norway in 2019. Only 350 of these applications received funding in the form of Research Project, Young Research Talent or Mobility Grants. A total of 3.3 billion NOK has been distributed across the successful applicants.
Dr Haapaniemi's project, “CRISPR-Cas9-mediated gene therapy for monogenic blood disorders”, has been awarded just under 8 million NOK.
Dr Haapaniemi's award marks a continuation of success for NCMM group leaders in receiving Young Research Talent grants from the RCN, with current group leaders Anthony Mathelier, Irep Gözen, Nikolina Sekulic, Sandra Lopez-Aviles and Judith Staerk receiving the same award in previous years.
Dr Haapaniemi was also awarded funding for three years by Helse Sør-Øst. This funding will pay for a new PhD student to join the lab in 2020.
Discussing the funding awards, Dr Haapaniemi said: "I am delighted that both the Research Council and Helse Sør-Øst have decided to fund my ongoing work at NCMM. With these grants, I’m able to further consolidate my team and move the project towards clinical translation. I’m grateful for my team for their dedicated and hard work in setting up the lab and producing preliminary data for these grants at such a rapid pace, and I would like to thank both funding bodies for their decision to fund my group."
You can read more about the Haapaniemi group and their research goals at on the Haapaniemi lab website, as well as on the research groups section of the NCMM website. You can also read our researcher profile feature with Dr Haapaniemi from earlier this year.