Soile Nymark

Tampere University
Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology
Finland
Lab website

Dr. Soile Nymark is an Adjunct Professor and Academy Research Fellow in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology at Tampere University, Finland, where she has been leading a small research group since 2015.

Soile received her PhD at Aalto University, Finland, studying adaptation mechanisms in vertebrate rod photoreceptors under the supervision of Prof. Ari Koskelainen and Prof. Kristian Donner. She continued her research as a post-doctoral fellow at Boston University School of Medicine, USA, with Prof. Carter Cornwall, and the focus of her research was in the retina visual cycle. During this time, Soile’s interests started to move towards retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), the tissue critical to the classical visual cycle and overall maintenance of the neural retina. In 2012, Soile was granted an Academy of Finland post-doctoral funding to start her own research line in Finland focusing on RPE electrophysiology. This work opened her eyes to the impressive ion channel machinery of the RPE whose full contribution to the retinal physiology we are only beginning to understand. The current Research Fellow funding has enabled Soile to start her own research group focusing on the multiple interactions between retina and RPE utilizing tools offered by electrophysiology, high-resolution imaging and stem cell technology.