The Department
History of the Department dates back to the year 1957 when Professor Veikko Nurmikko, a former student and collaborator of the Nobel Laureate Artturi I. Virtanen, was nominated the first professorship in Biochemistry at the University of Turku. This marked the beginning of a long line of dedicated research and teaching in the field of Biochemistry in Turku. Over time the areas of expertise have expanded to encompass Food Chemistry (1970) focusing on the biochemistry and analytics of food and nutrition, Molecular Biotechnology and Diagnostics (1989) specialized in applications in analytics and in vitro diagnostics, and Molecular Plant Biology (2010) with its emphasis on the research of photosynthesis and energy metabolism. Recently, Food Development has become an integral part of the already stong field of food sciences at the Department.
Today the Department is an active participant and an interdisciplinary contributor in the bioscience community in Finland. The department has a history of world-wide international collaboration and a network of national collaborative projects with other universities, the private sector and industry.
The Department has modern research and teaching facilities and laboratories located mainly in three buildings, BioCity, PharmaCity and Arcanum [contact information]