The Innovation Generation Is Here: Meet Valtteri Lehtinen, 3rd Year Dental Student

Anna-Maria and Valtteri

“This is the last summer for me, before I can start working as a substitute Dentist – four years of studies are required for that, and I’ve just finished my third year at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Medicine.”, says Valtteri Lehtinen, who started his internship at Disior this May.

“I wanted to find a summer job that combines technology, innovation and medicine – something that is both relevant to my studies and where I get to use my programming skills and creative thinking to real-life data and problems.”, he says.

Valtteri started his search by contacting the Helsinki Think Company office in Meilahti. Located at the Terkko Health Hub with the Medical Library, and home to a community of Med Tech startups, he ended up speaking with Anna-Maria Henell, Disior CEO, on finding a role like that.

“This was a perfect match. We are working on facial fractures research with the HUS Head and Neck Center. Finding someone who understands that research setup as well as the software, is a perfect person to run the testing on this project.”, Anna-Maria says.

The work also enables Valtteri to combine subjects taught in Dental School to practical use.

“I just finished the semester with an optional course in oral surgery. It has been great to see how the things I learned there, transfer to what we do at Disior.”, Valtteri says. “Analyzing the medical images, and matching what’s in the image to a live surgery, gives you better understanding of the whole process – both from the medical professional’s perspective, and the product development perspective.”

Working at the crossroads of clinical work, medical research and technology also brings up new opportunities for research.

“I am writing my licentiate thesis on dental genetics. If I wasn't, I could have gotten both the subject and the research material from this work. After this summer, the material would have been all ready, apart from the actual writing part.”, says Valtteri.

Not all research topics are born in the laboratories, or at the university - even when you have cross-disciplinary teams. Sometimes you want to work with companies, R&D, and novel technologies, too, to get the full understanding of what is possible. Once you know all the technology building blocks, you can really start to innovate on what is possible with the research.

Disior works with Researchers and Medical Students on research projects that cover analysis and modelling of both bones and soft tissue in CT and MRI images. To learn more, and to discuss future research projects, please contact Anna-Maria Henell.

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