Department of Environmental Studies, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland.
E. Elias Hakalehto, PhD, graduated from the University of Helsinki as an environmental microbiologist in 1983 and got his PhD in biotechnology at the University of Kuopio, Finland, in the year 2000. During 1983-84, he acted as a board member of the Helsinki University’s Student Union. He established the environmental section of the union, being also its first chairman. He has familiarized himself with microbes’ physiological and clinical role in the aetiology of diseases. In the industrial microbiology field, he has designed biorefinery processes for converting side streams into valuable chemicals, including organic acids and higher alcohols, energy gases such as methane and hydrogen, and organic fertilizers. Dr. Hakalehto was nominated as the Adjunct Professor of the University of Kuopio (now the University of Eastern Finland) in 2008 in biotechnical microbe analytics, and the Adjunct Professor of the University of Helsinki in 2016 in microbiological agroecology. He is the inventor of the PMEU device (Portable Microbe Enrichment Unit) and the concept “Bacteriological Intestinal Balance” (BIB).