The TYKS Foundation will be headed by Petri Virolainen, Docent, Hospital Director, Acting Director of Hospital District, and Minna Lukkarinen, D.Med.Sc., Specialist in Paediatrics, who were appointed as the new Chair of the Board and Executive Director, respectively.
The “new brooms” will sweep tidy floors, i.e. run the Foundation’s already impeccable operations. A record number of scholarships were awarded in January 2022, and the 18-seat research unit at Sirkkalankatu 4 serves as an important workspace for researchers. Executive Director, Professor Emeritus Olli Ruuskanen and Chair of the Board Risto Laalo, who have been involved in the TYKS Foundation since its establishment, will continue to monitor the Foundation’s activities with interest.
The new Executive Director Minna Lukkarinen is a Doctor of Medical Science and a Specialist in Paediatrics. She is a paediatrician at the Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at Tyks and the principal researcher in the paediatric sub-study of the successful FinnBrain research project of the University of Turku and Tyks.
“I’m very grateful for the vote of confidence to lead the TYKS Foundation, which I will do with an open mind. It will be interesting and enlightening to see the Foundation’s activities from the other side, for example as a funder, as I have been a grant applicant for years as a researcher,” Lukkarinen says.
The new Chair of the Board Docent Petri Virolainen is an orthopaedist by training and has served as the Hospital Director of Tyks since the 2010s and most recently as the Acting Director of the Hospital District of Southwest Finland.
“The TYKS Foundation is an important partner of the Hospital District of Turku and Southwest Finland, and it helps the researchers of today to build better care for tomorrow. With the support of the Foundation, we can deliver on our promise ‘Getting better, every day’. It’s a pleasure to be involved in running a board of experts from different fields that has focused on developing the Foundation’s activities and supporting research,” Virolainen summarises.
Board of the TYKS Foundation
Mari Lahti, D.H.Sc., post doc, Principal Lecturer, Turku University of Applied Sciences
Johanna Lempainen, Docent, Chief of Department, Turku University Hospital
Terhi Mäki, LL.M., Head of Administration, Rausanne Oy
Olli-Pekka Saario, LL.B., Finnish honorary title of kauppaneuvos
Jari-Pekka Tuominen, LL.M., Administrative Director, Hospital District of Southwest Finland
Sanna Salanterä, Professor of Clinical Nursing, University of Turku
Petri Virolainen, Chair, Docent, Acting Director of Hospital District, Hospital District of Southwest Finland
Further information:
Minna Lukkarinen, Executive Director, email: minna.lukkarinen (at) utu.fi, tel.
+358 40 701 7876.