Taina Pihlajaniemi

Taina Pihlajaniemi, M.D., Ph.D., is professor in medical biochemistry since 1990 (emerita since 7/2025) and previously the vice president of research (2010-2025) at the University of Oulu, Finland. She spent 3 years as a postdoc at Rutgers Medical School, and she has led Academy of Finland Centre of Excellences in matrix biology.

She has investigated the structural and regulatory roles of collagens. She has together with her colleagues discovered several of the collagen family of proteins and studied their biochemical and cellular properties as well as physiological and pathological relevance in animal models and human diseases. These include the structurally homologous collagen types XV and XVIII, forming the subfamily of multiplexins, and collagen XIII, identified as a transmembrane protein. Over 200 scientific publications.

She has been the Chair of the 20th Meeting of the Federation of European Connective Tissue Societies and jointly the 1st meeting of the International Society for Matrix Biology (ISMB), held in Oulu, Finland in 2006; the Vice chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Collagen, USA, in 2019, and the Chair in 2023.

She has been a member of ISMB since its foundation and a Council member. She has been an Editorial Board Member for Matrix Biology, a section Editor (extracellular matrix) for Cell & Tissue Research, and Faculty Member and Contributor for Faculty 1000. She received the ISMB Distinguished Investigator´s Award in 2023. As a scientific co-founder of FibroGen Inc., she has also worked to bring scientific discoveries into medical use.