Erik Niemi
Biography
I am a PhD student of exercise physiology studying the molecular mechanisms of exercise with the use of exercise-mimicking in vitro cell models. My work utilizes some of the latest methods in molecular biology research, such as bioengineered 3D cell cultures and next generation RNA-sequencing (NGS), with a strong emphasis on large-scale biological data analysis and multi-omic data combination.
Research interests
I am especially interested in the development of physiologically relevant exercise-mimicking cell models that would more accurately represent the extracellular environment of cells compared to traditional 2D monolayer models. With the use of these models, our research group aims to understand the crosstalk between vascular endothelial cells and other cell types in response to exercise and to identify potential molecular mediators of the therapeutic effects of exercise.