Jukka Hakkola

Jukka Hakkola is a Professor of Pharmacology since 2009 and the Head of the Research Unit of Biomedicine since 2014. Hakkola has over 25 years of experience in the pharmacology and toxicology and hepatic cell and molecular biology. His research interests have focused on nuclear receptors and cytochrome P450 enzymes, during the recent years especially on hepatic energy metabolism with the aim to understand how hepatocytes sense nutritional and environmental exposure and adjust metabolic functions in response. Currently, his main research target is a xenobiotic-sensing nuclear receptor PXR. His team investigates the role PXR in regulation of glucose and lipid metabolism and in development of metabolic diseases such diabetes, non-alcoholic liver disease and the metabolic syndrome. He has also publications and ongoing work on the energy sensing factors, sirtuins and the coactivator PGC-1α, and on vitamin D metabolism. He is also a partner in an EU project, EDCMET, aiming to develop novel methods and models to assess the metabolic effects of endocrine disruptors and to identify relevant molecular initiating events linked to the adverse outcomes.