In the beginning, 12 ESRs were selected for the program in the University of Eastern Finland. Four ESRs graduated by the end of 2022. Due to an unforeseen situation, one ESR did not complete their period in the program. The rest are expected to graduate during 2023-2024. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, 5 ESRs were able to complete their secondment in another university.
Each ESR was a part of one local research group, and each ESR had at least two supervisors. The main supervisor, who was the PI of the research group, had a full responsibility for the overall management of the ESRs training and research project. Additional supervisors guided the ESRs related to their own scientific expertise. The main supervisor together with co-supervisors offered advice and guidance to the ESR towards the completion of the PhD degree. Working with the ESRs, they helped them to prepare appropriate ambitious personal career development plans and provided feedback on the research work progress, on the writing of scientific research articles and on presentations of the research results in seminars. The quality and efficacy of the supervision and progress of each ESRs was monitored and assessed annually by a follow-up query. The main supervisor and ESR were required to discuss the results together.
The transferable skills curriculum provided ESRs an opportunity to acquire skills needed in pursuing career paths after their initial researcher training. All ESRs also completed research ethics courses during their studies.
All publications made in the GenomMed doctoral program were open access. During the program, 27 peer-reviewed scientific articles, one book chapter and one conference proceeding were published. ESRs attended events 89 times. They held 55 poster presentations and 30 oral presentations.
All public defenses of dissertations were advertised on the GenomMed Twitter account and streamed online for the public.
While no IP during the program was created, significant advances in the scientific fields of magnetic resonance image segmentation, effects of genetic variants of neurogenerative diseases, mainly Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia and contribution of nutrient-related metabolites to clinical phenotypes were identified.
