Helsinki University Central Hospital
Stenbäckinkatu 9
FIN-00290 Helsinki
Finland
Tel. + 358 04711 2010
Fax + 358 0471 2014

Helsinki University Central Hospital (HUCH) is among the largest university hospitals in Europe with over 2000 patient beds and equally many physicians serving a catchment population of 1.5 million in Southern Finland. The Department of Neurology houses 90 patient beds in four wards, large outpatient and rehabilitation clinics, over 50 neurologists, and nursing staff of over 200. Emergency Neurological Service (ENS) is centralized in the area and is located in the ER of the Meilahti Hospital (Chief, Perttu J Lindsberg). It receives over 20 hundred stroke admissions annually. Thrombolytic therapy is well established in routine manage­ment since 1998 and the unit administers roughly 200 stroke thrombolyses annually. The department has a dedicated stroke unit (Chief, Turgut Tatlisumak) with 15 beds (7 high-dependency beds). In EUSTROKE the group will contribute their expertise in WP5 “Preventing Stroke via the Neurovascular Unit”. They will also play a fundamental role in the Clinical Trial Platform (WP8) and assist in securing network durability in WP13.

Biomedicum Helsinki is a major research institute of the University of Helsinki and is located 200 meters from Meilahti Hospital. It houses most basic research activities and fruitful collaborative work of basic and clinical researchers for rapid translation of novel innovations from bench to bedside. In Biomedicum our team has well-equipped laboratory facilities with operation theatres for rodents, a 4.7 T MRI for rodent brain imaging, laser Doppler flowmetry, laser-capture microdissection, DNA microarray core facility, etc. Full exploitation of the clinical material and modern scientific facilities in the campus have allowed our team to engage in truly translational projects in both basic and clinical stroke research. Examples of this include clinically well-characterized tissue biobanks of human infracted brains as well as carotid arteries from symptomatic or asymptomatic patients. Our recent publications illustrate the translational approach in using most up-to-date basic scientific methods in investigating the many facets of human cerebrovascular disease.

Project Leader

Professor Markku Kaste, MD, PhD Emeritus Chairman Tel. +358 9 471 72260, +358 50 427 0303 Fax + 358 9 471 74089 Contact

Project Staff

Turgut Tatlisumak, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Vice Chairman, Chief of Acute Stroke Unit (stroke neurologist, expert in experimental stroke models and MRI) Tel. +358 9 471 71762 Fax +358 9 471 74089 Contact

Risto O Roine, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, (stroke neurologist, expert in hypothermia) Contact