معرفی
Rafa Najumudeen is a Research Fellow and Supervisor for the Doctoral Programme in Integrative Life Science at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), University of Helsinki. He obtained his PhD in Cell Biology from Åbo Akademi in 2016, focusing on targeting oncogenic membrane-bound signaling proteins.
His research explores cancer biology mechanisms, with emphasis on KRAS-driven malignancies, metabolic plasticity, solute carrier transporters, and therapeutic targeting. Key interests include cancer metabolism, genetic drivers of tumor initiation, and in vivo modeling of colorectal/pancreatic cancers.
Najumudeen leads multiple active grants:
- MetaPlastic (Academy of Finland, 2025-2029): Studying metabolic bottlenecks in cancer
- TRNSMET (Academy of Finland, 2025-2027): Solute carriers in metabolic reprogramming
- CanSERV (2025): 100k-compound organoid drug screening
- Syöpäsäätiö (2024-2027, €206k): Cancer Foundation project
- Juselius (2023-2026, €150k): Sigrid Jusélius Foundation grant
As doctoral supervisor, he oversees trainees in integrative life sciences at FIMM, where his lab employs molecular biology and in vivo approaches to identify cancer vulnerabilities.
