Mari Merentie is cardiologist and PhD. She currently works as an interventional cardiologist in the Heart Hospital Nova in Jyväskylä, Central Finland. Previously she has done preclinical research in the field of cardiac gene therapy in the Professor Ylä-Herttuala´s research group in A.I.Virtanen Institute in University of Eastern Finland. Her Ph.D. dissertation focused on developing a clinically relevant intramyocardial gene transfer method for mice and to applying the method to evaluate the efficiency and safety of gene transfer with adenovirus-, adenoassociatedvirus- and lentivirus vectors as well as the angiogenic potency of different vascular endothelial growth factors in the heart. To further develop the methodology for mouse cardiac studies, a mouse electrocardiogram analysis algorithm was developed and validated.