Mikko Finnilä

Dr. Mikko Finnilä leads the Medical Bioengineering research group at the University of Oulu. His work combines joint biology, biomechanics and X-ray imaging to understand how musculoskeletal diseases, especially osteoarthritis, begin and how they could be treated earlier.

Dr. Finnilä received his PhD from the University of Oulu in 2014. His doctoral work focused on the bone toxicity of persistent organic pollutants and was carried out in collaboration with the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Karolinska Institutet (Sweden) and Cranfield University (UK). As a postdoctoral researcher, he moved into osteoarthritis research in Rami Korhonen’s Biophysics of Bone and Cartilage group at the University of Eastern Finland, including an extended research visit to Walter Herzog’s group at the University of Calgary (Canada). In 2017 he returned to Oulu to develop X-ray microtomography methods, served as vice-head of the DIOS (Diagnostics of Osteoarthritis) group, and was responsible for the Biomedical Engineering subject.

He founded his own group in 2022. The group works from the lab towards the bedside, from contrast-enhanced 3D X-ray histopathology to weight-bearing computed tomography. Current research topics include the role of oxygen sensing in osteoarthritis, biomaterials that deliver therapeutic compounds to the joint, and metabolic osteoarthritis. In metabolic osteoarthritis, the group studies changes in joint space after bariatric surgery and the role of bone-marrow adipose tissue. Dr. Finnilä leads a Biocenter Oulu Emerging Project (2022–2026) and an InfoTech Oulu Spearhead Project (2026–2028).