Professor Dr. Vesa Kaartinen

Biography

Vesa M. Kaartinen, Ph.D., received MSc (1986) and Ph.D. (1991) degrees from the University of Kuopio, Finland, where he studied the molecular bases of lysosomal storage diseases, specifically aspartylglucosaminuria. Following his doctoral studies, he began a postdoctoral fellowship at Children's Hospital Los Angeles under Dr. John Groffen and Dr. Nora Heisterkamp, specializing in developmental biology with a particular emphasis on mouse genetics and organogenesis. In 1997, he joined the faculty of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, where he was involved in the Developmental Biology Program at the Saban Research Institute. In 2008, he became a faculty member at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and was promoted to full professor in 2014. His research program primarily focuses on growth factor signaling and its implications in craniofacial and cardiac development. Dr. Kaartinen has served on various institutional and national committees, including NIH and American Heart Association grant review panels, and is an active reviewer for several scientific journals.

Research Interests