Topic: research

Research Days of the Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine will take place on 29–30 January 2026

On 20 February 2026 Jana Uhlinova will defend her thesis “Vascular calcification and its associations with obesity and bone mineral density in chronic kidney disease”.

Researchers from the Institute of Clinical Medicine at the University of Tartu have developed an artificial intelligence-based machine learning model that enabled the relapse risk of endometrial cancer to be assessed before surgical intervention.

On the 6th of February 2026 Kadri Klaos will defend her thesis "The thin-layer agar MDR/XDR-TB Colour Test: filling the gap in diagnosing tuberculosis from a laboratory perspective“.

In 2025, the study that drew the most attention in public digital channels was led by Professor of Botany Meelis Pärtel and confirms the negative effect of human activity on wildlife biodiversity.

Researchers at the University of Tartu Institute of Computer Science, Junior Research Fellow of Artificial Intelligence Joonas Ariva and Associate Professor in Artificial Intelligence Dmytro Fishman, together with radiologists from Tartu University Hospital and engineers at Better Medicine, have developed an AI-based tool that accelerates the detection of kidney cancer. Its effectiveness was validated in a study published in Nature Communications Medicine.

On the 12th of December 2025 Tatjana Meister will defend her thesis "Assessing COVID-19 risk and sequelae: the role of vaccination in modifying infection, severity, and long-term outcomes”.

A doctoral thesis defended in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tartu fundamentally changes the current understanding of atherosclerosis treatment. The results show that at the cellular level, this chronic disease progresses differently in men and women, laying the groundwork for more precise and individualized therapies.

As possible ways forward, participants proposed strengthening digital and health literacy, providing institutional support for professionals, and raising awareness among both healthcare workers and patients.