Siri Tahtinen, PhD

Lab Head

Siri Tahtinen, Genentech

Pronouns: she/her

Siri Tahtinen, PhD has ten years of experience in translational immunology both in academia and in industry, specializing in nanoparticle vaccines, immuno- and gene therapies and oncolytic viruses. Her current research focuses on the mechanism-of-action of different RNA- and DNA-based vaccine modalities, with special emphasis on the innate immune recognition and induction of adaptive responses by these vaccine platforms. Siri obtained her Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) and Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Biochemistry at University of Turku, Finland and her PhD in Biomedicine at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Siri recently completed her postdoctoral training at the Cancer Immunology department at Genentech, in the research group of Ira Mellman, while working in close collaboration with Lelia Delamarre’s lab and other internal and external partners. She currently holds a position of Principal Scientist/Group Leader at the department of Immunology Discovery at Genentech Inc. Her lab is focused on investigating novel biology and potential therapeutic targets to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases by inducing antigen- and/or tissue-specific immune tolerance and immunosuppression. The labs main interests include tolerogenic vaccines, inflammation & innate immunity and DC/myeloid/lymphocyte biology. During her graduate and postgraduate work, Siri has received numerous awards and grants, has been a co-inventor in three patent applications and has been a first author or a co-author in over 25 scientific publications and manuscripts.