Leena Peltonen-Palotie

Leena Peltonen-Palotie (16 June 1952 – 11 March 2010) was a Finnish geneticist who contributed to the identification of 15 genes for Finnish heritage diseases, including arterial hypertension, schizophrenia, lactose intolerance, arthrosis and multiple sclerosis. She was considered one of the world's leading molecular geneticists.

Peltonen-Palotie worked at the National Public Health Institute of Finland from 1987 to 1998. From 1998 to 2002 she helped found the UCLA Department of Human Genetics. She had a professorial position in the Academy of Finland since 2003. In April 2005 Peltonen-Palotie was employed at the University of Helsinki and the National Public Health Institute of Finland. She was also the project director for the EU project GenomEUtwin that was formed to define and characterize the genetic components in the background of different diseases. In 2004 she became a member of the Board of Directors of Orion Corporation, the largest Finnish pharmaceutical company. In September 2007, Peltonen-Palotie joined the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute as the head of Human Genetics. She also headed research groups at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University.

Peltonen-Palotie published over 500 research articles and almost 80 invited articles, and mentored over 70 PhD students in her career.

Awards and honours In addition to many academic awards she received an honorary degree from the Faculty of Medicine at University of Uppsala in 2000, In 2004, the Finnish television show listed Peltonen-Palotie as 77th of the 100 greatest Finns of all time. In 2006, Peltonen-Palotie was awarded the Belgian and the Swedish prizes. In 2009, she was awarded the Finnish honorary title of Academician of Science.