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Leena Peltonen-Palotie Dies

Mar 15, 2010

Leena Peltonen-Palotie, the head human genetics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, died last week, the institute says. She was 57. Peltonen-Palotie studied population genetics and her group found mutations associated with schizophrenia, obesity, heart diseases among other disease. During her career, she also established a genetic research center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and was a member of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council. She also worked with the Academy of Finland, her country. "Academician Leena Peltonen-Palotie has been a role model, both to scientists around the world and to individuals who hope to embark on careers in research. She has left a void in the Finnish scientific community that will be impossible to fill," says Markku Mattila, president of the Academy of Finland, in a statement.

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