Professor Ivaska is an academic researcher at the University of Turku, Finland. Her research focuses on finding novel approaches to treat cancer by gaining a fuller appreciation of the intricacies of cell adhesion in regulating cell fate, tissue homeostasis and crosstalk with the stroma.

Johanna obtained her PhD in 2000 at the University of Turku before completing her EMBO and Research Council of Finland (formerly Academy of Finland) funded postdoctoral training at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute in 2003. She was appointed Group Leader of the Cell Adhesion and Cancer Laboratory and Research Council of Finland Principal Investigator at the University of Turku in 2003. Johanna became a Professor of Molecular Cell Biology in 2008 (tenured in 2015). She is currently a Finnish Cancer Institute (FCI) Research Professor (K. Albin Johansson Professorship) and Director of a Research Council of Finland Centre of Excellence, BarrierForce.

Johanna has published over 130 papers, with first or senior author publications in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology, Nature Reviews Cancer, Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology, Nature Materials and Nature Cell Biology.

Examples of Johanna’s seminal discoveries include several novel integrin activity and trafficking regulators, including SHANK3, Rab21 and Swip-1 and identification of pathways regulating cancer invasion and metastasis. Johanna’s expertise in receptor trafficking and cancer cell signaling have also led to the discovery of drug resistance mechanisms in HER2-amplified breast cancer and new potential cancer vulnerabilities in KRAS-driven lung and pancreatic cancer. Additionally, in a global collaborative effort, Johanna and her team have shown that brain cancer cells exhibit biased migration toward softer environments (“negative durotaxis”). Furthermore, they have uncovered specific ECM conditions that enable cells on soft to adapt a “stiff-like” spreading behaviour. These data represent a major paradigm shift in the field cancer mechanobiology where the majority of research has focused on cancer cells favouring a stiffer microenvironment.

Johanna was recently awarded an ERC Advanced Grant to investigate the molecular signals underlying cancer border-crossings and the mechanisms that overwhelm the natural defences that normally maintain normal tissue architecture and prevent disease progression.

Johanna was elected as a member of EMBO in 2015, the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters in 2016 and Academia Europaea in 2023. She was appointed as EMBO Council member in 2023.