Dr Suvi Linna-Kuosmanen
Suvi Linna-Kuosmanen is a Senior Researcher and group leader at the A.I. Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, and a Research Fellow at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. Her research examines the molecular and cellular mechanisms of cardiovascular disease and aging, particularly coronary artery disease, heart failure and atrial fibrillation.
A central theme of her work is understanding human disease directly in patient tissues and connecting these observations with experimentally tractable models. Her group combines human cardiac samples and engineered tissues with single-cell and spatial omics, computational biology and functional experiments. Current interests include the cardiac microvasculature, cellular changes associated with cardiovascular aging, and the effects of environmental exposures, including micro- and nanoplastics, on cardiovascular cells and tissues.
Linna-Kuosmanen received her PhD in Molecular Medicine from the University of Eastern Finland, where she studied endothelial biology and atherosclerosis using genomic and transcriptomic approaches. She completed her postdoctoral training with Manolis Kellis at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, using single-cell and spatial approaches to study cardiovascular disease in human heart samples and map the cellular and microvascular organisation of the heart.
At Cambridge, she is extending this work using human stem-cell-derived cardiovascular models to investigate mechanisms identified in patient tissues, with a particular interest in microvascular dysfunction and cardiovascular aging.
Select publications
- Schmauch E, Ojanen J, Galani K, Jalkanen J, Harju K, Hollmén M, Kokki H, Gunn J, Halonen J, Hartikainen J, Kiviniemi T, Tavi P, Kaikkonen MU, Kellis M, Linna-Kuosmanen S. QClus: a droplet filtering algorithm for enhanced snRNA-seq data quality in challenging samples. Nucleic Acids Research. 2025;53(1):gkae1145. doi:10.1093/nar/gkae1145.
- Linna-Kuosmanen S, Schmauch E, Galani K, Ojanen J, Boix CA, Örd T, Toropainen A, Singha PK, Moreau PR, Harju K, Blazeski A, Segerstolpe Å, Lahtinen V, Hou L, Kang K, Meibalan E, Agudelo LZ, Kokki H, Halonen J, Jalkanen J, Gunn J, MacRae CA, Hollmén M, Hartikainen JEK, Kaikkonen MU, García-Cardeña G, Tavi P, Kiviniemi T, Kellis M. Transcriptomic and spatial dissection of human ex vivo right atrial tissue reveals proinflammatory microvascular changes in ischemic heart disease. Cell Reports Medicine. 2024;5(5):101556. doi:10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101556.
- Linna-Kuosmanen S, Vuori M, Kiviniemi T, Palmu J, Niiranen T. Genetics, transcriptomics, metagenomics, and metabolomics in the pathogenesis and prediction of atrial fibrillation. European Heart Journal Supplements. 2024;26(Suppl 4):iv33–iv40. doi:10.1093/eurheartjsupp/suae072.
- Schmauch E, Piening B, Mohebnasab M, Xia B, Zhu C, Stern J, Zhang W, Dowdell AK, Kim JI, Andrijevic D, Khalil K, Jaffe IS, Loza BL, Gragert L, Camellato BR, Oliveira MF, O’Brien DP, Chen HM, Weldon E, Gao H, Gandla D, Chang A, Bhatt R, Gao S, Lin X, Reddy KP, Kagermazova L, Habara AH, Widawsky S, Liang FX, Sall J, Loupy A, Heguy A, Taylor SEB, Zhu Y, Michael B, Jiang L, Jian R, Chong AS, Fairchild RL, Linna-Kuosmanen S, Kaikkonen MU, Tatapudi V, Lorber M, Ayares D, Mangiola M, Narula N, Moazami N, Pass H, Herati RS, Griesemer A, Kellis M, Snyder MP, Montgomery RA, Boeke JD, Keating BJ. Integrative multi-omics profiling in human decedents receiving pig heart xenografts. Nature Medicine. 2024;30(5):1448–1460. doi:10.1038/s41591-024-02972-1.
- Moreau PR, Tomas Bosch V, Bouvy-Liivrand M, Õunap K, Örd T, Pulkkinen HH, Pölönen P, Heinäniemi M, Ylä-Herttuala S, Laakkonen JP, Linna-Kuosmanen S, Kaikkonen MU. Profiling of primary and mature miRNA expression in atherosclerosis-associated cell types. Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. 2021;41(7):2149–2167. doi:10.1161/ATVBAHA.121.315579.
- Linna-Kuosmanen S, Tomas Bosch V, Moreau PR, Bouvy-Liivrand M, Niskanen H, Kansanen E, Kivelä A, Hartikainen J, Hippeläinen M, Kokki H, Tavi P, Levonen AL, Kaikkonen MU. NRF2 is a key regulator of endothelial microRNA expression under proatherogenic stimuli. Cardiovascular Research. 2021;117(5):1339–1357. doi:10.1093/cvr/cvaa219.
- Kuosmanen SM, Sihvola V, Kansanen E, Kaikkonen MU, Levonen AL. MicroRNAs mediate the senescence-associated decline of NRF2 in endothelial cells. Redox Biology. 2018;18:77–83. doi:10.1016/j.redox.2018.06.007.
- Kuosmanen SM, Kansanen E, Kaikkonen MU, Sihvola V, Pulkkinen K, Jyrkkänen HK, Tuoresmäki P, Hartikainen J, Hippeläinen M, Kokki H, Tavi P, Heikkinen S, Levonen AL. NRF2 regulates endothelial glycolysis and proliferation with miR-93 and mediates the effects of oxidized phospholipids on endothelial activation. Nucleic Acids Research. 2018;46(3):1124–1138. doi:10.1093/nar/gkx1155
Select awards
- 2026 Osk. Huttunen Foundation Fellowship / Clare Hall, Cambridge
- 2022 Interstellar Initiative Award, AMED and New York Academy of Sciences
- 2021–2024 Academy Postdoctoral Researcher Award, Research Council of Finland
- 2019–2021 Sigrid Jusélius Fellowship / MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab
