Jukka Hakkola
Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Oulu who studies the pregnane X receptor (PXR), a liver sensor of drugs and foreign chemicals, and how it changes liver growth and metabolism
Professor of Pharmacology (since 2009) and Head of the Research Unit of Biomedicine (since 2014), Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu · Biocenter Oulu and Medical Research Center Oulu
Research Unit of Biomedicine and Internal Medicine, Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Oulu (Oulu, Finland) ↗ ORCID0000-0001-5048-4363 ↗
Jukka Hakkola is the senior author of LASSILA2026, a study that joins a small clinical trial with mouse work. The pregnane X receptor (PXR) is a protein in liver cells that detects many drugs and chemicals and switches on genes to deal with them. Rifampicin, an antibiotic, activates it strongly. In 16 healthy volunteers, one week of rifampicin made the liver about 2.7 percent larger relative to body weight. In male mice, activating PXR also enlarged the liver, and this came with higher activity of the AKT-MTOR growth pathway but not of YAP, another known driver of liver growth. The human part shows the effect is real in people, while the mTOR link comes from the mice.
Hakkola has worked on PXR for many years. PubMed lists him on more than 25 PXR papers from the University of Oulu, usually as senior author. A 2025 study from the group, for example, found Lasp2, a small cell-adhesion protein, as a new PXR target gene in mouse liver, with partners at Charles University in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. The wider theme is how drug-sensing receptors in the liver also change glucose and fat metabolism and the size of the organ.
Hakkola, who holds an MD and a PhD, has been Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Oulu since 2009 and head of its Research Unit of Biomedicine since 2014. The team works on nuclear receptors, proteins that switch genes on when they bind a signal molecule, and on cytochrome P450 enzymes, which break down drugs in the liver. Its main current target is PXR and how it shapes glucose and fat metabolism and metabolic disease. Other topics include sirtuins, PGC-1alpha and vitamin D metabolism.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | H | Pregnane X receptor-mediated liver growth: a controlled clinical trial in healthy volunteers and identification of the role of AKT-MTOR pathway in mouse. LASSILA2026 Senior author: led the trial showing that a week of rifampicin enlarges the human liver and the mouse work tying PXR-driven liver growth to AKT-MTOR signalling. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 2
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Jukka Hakkola.
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- Outi Kummu Studies how chemicals activate the nuclear receptor PXR and disturb metabolism; co-author of the study linking PXR-driven liver growth to the AKT-mTOR pathway.
- Piia Lassila Researcher in Jukka Hakkola's pharmacology group at the University of Oulu who led a clinical and mouse study showing that activating the drug sensor PXR makes the liver grow
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