Prof. Banu ONARAL, PhD

- H. H. Sun Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering at Drexel University

Philadelphia, PA, USA

Banu Onaral is H. H. Sun Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. She received her BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey, in 1973 and 1974, respectively, and earned her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. Dr. Onaral joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Biomedical Engineering and Science Institute at Drexel University in 1981. Starting in 1995, she led the strategic planning to transform the Biomedical Engineering and Science Institute into a university-level interdisciplinary school. She served as the Founding Director of the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems since its creation in 1997 to 2014. She currently leads the ‘Global Innovation Partnerships’ initiative as Senior Presidential Advisor at Drexel University.

Prof. Utkan DEMİRCİ, PhD

- Professor with tenure at the Stanford University School of Medicine

Stanford, CA, USA

Dr. Utkan Demirci is a Full Professor with tenure at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, CA. Before Stanford, he was an Associate Professor of Medicine and Health Sciences and Technology at the Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Health Sciences and Technology (HST) division. He received his bachelor’s degree (summa cum laude) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, his master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering in 2001 and in Management Science and Engineering in 2005, and his doctorate in Electrical Engineering in 2005 all from Stanford University. Dr. Demirci received IEEE EMBS Early Career Award; IEEE EMBS Translational Science Award; NSF CAREER Award; Coulter Foundation Early Career Award; HMS-Young Investigator Award; and Chinese National Science Foundation International Young Scientist Award. In 2006, he was selected to TR-35 as one of the world’s top 35 young innovators under the age of 35 by the MIT Technology Review.

Prof. Cengizhan ÖZTÜRK, PhD

- Professor at Bogaziçi University

İstanbul, TURKEY

Dr. Cengizhan Ozturk has been leading a multidisciplinary research team at the Bogazici University: The Micro-System Based Medical Device Development Laboratory.It was more firmly established on January 2008, when it was funded through three-way project consortium by the State Planning Organization, with the official name of Center for Life Sciences and Technologies.(http://lifesci.boun.edu.tr) Original LİfeSci modules (DeviceLab, System Biology and Vivarium) have been expanded to include two new modules: a) Smart Drugs, b) Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. The Center is supported by over 40 academicians from 10 different departments. Vivarium is now fully operational, and the 250 m2 Clean Room, combining unique MEMS and medical device production capabilities under one roof, certified in Autumn of 2011. The overall earmarked budget for this ongoing center project is now around 9.500.000 $. In May 2011, Dr. Ozturk has been named the Director of the Center for Life Sciences and Technologies.

Prof. Nesrin ÇOBANOĞLU

- Istanbul University, Cerrahpasa School of Medicine.

İstanbul, TURKEY

Prof. Dr. NESRIN COBANOGLU has graduated from Istanbul University, Cerrahpasa School of Medicine. She completed her graduate studies in "Public Administration" and "History of Medicine, Deontology and Medical Ethics” to become an Associate Professor in 2005 and a Professor in 2011. She is the founder of the Department of History of Medicine and Medical Ethics in Baskent University. She is currently working as the chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine in Gazi University. She is giving doctoral courses in the Institute of Social Sciences in Ankara University (Faculty of Political Science). Thus, she continues her scientific career in both areas. She has been the president of “Women’s Studies Center” in Gazi University. She has many national and international publications and books. She worked on the ethics boards of many national and international scientific organizations. She has been invited to UN, WHO, UNESCO and the EU scientific meetings as the representative of Turkey. She is a member of Health Ministery Scientific Committee.

She has been the member of the administrative board of Turkish Medical Association and Ankara Medical Association (General Secretary). She is currently a member of Turkish Medical Association, Biopolitics International Organization (BIOS), BPW (Business and Professional Woman), Sociological Association, AIDS Prevention Society, Hacettepe University AIDS Treatment Center (HATAM), Public Management Professionals Association, the Philosophical Society of Turkey, Bioethics Association, International Association for Education in Ethics (IAEE), Association of Medical Ethics and Medical Law.

Prof. Nesrin ÖZÖREN

Professor Nesrin Özören graduated from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Boğaziçi University in 1995 and conducted doctoral studies at University of Pennsylvania, USA between 1996 and 2002. Her doctoral work focused on the basic mechanisms of programmed cell death pathways, and their deregulation in different types of cancer.

Between 2002-2005, Dr. Nesrin Özören completed post-doctoral studies at the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor, USA. During these studies she worked on apoptosis regulation by BCL-2 family proteins and also on pathogen sensing via Nod Like Receptors (NLR)

Dr. Özören was appointed Assist. Prof. at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Boğaziçi University in 2005 and established the Apoptosis and Cancer Immunology Laboratory (AKiL) in 2007. Dr. Özören was promoted to Associate in 2008 and full Professor in 2015. She has pioneered the use of lentiviruses on human primary human melanocytes, keratinocytes and fibroblasts, with the purpose to change their genetic material. During their studies on the functions of NLR proteins, Dr. Özören’s group utilizes shRNAi technology to suppress different genes, in a transient or stable manner. Her current work on NLR proteins and immune tolerance mechanisms incorporates the novel induced pluripotent stem cells and CRISPER/CAS9 technologies. The AKiL group has established many cell death/survival assays using flow cytometry or other kinds of fluorimetric or colorimetric assays and has distributed this knowhow to guest students and researchers from the country. Dr. Özören has lead the establishment of xenograft protocols in nude and SCID mice, followed by in vivo imaging, which are essential for cancer research, while managing the animal facility-Vivarium. She has been the coordinator of the Vivarium and vice-director of the Center for Life Sciences and Technologies at Boğaziçi University between the years 2009-2015.

AKİL is the only laboratory in the country to focus on inflammasome (ASC speck) assembly mechanisms. Based on these studies a novel microsphere delivery method – via ASC specks- has been discovered. ASC specks can be loaded with different antigens and biomolecules and purified microspheres can be used for delivery to cells or animals. This discovery has been patented (TR 2012 04773 B ve PCT/IB2013/053079). Currently, a new project is underway to use this technology and develop novel flu vaccines.

Prof. Nesrin Özören had been awarded the Turkish Academy of Sciences Distinguished Young Scientist Award in 2006. She is also the first recipient of the EMBO Strategic Development and Integration Grant in 2006. In 2007 Oriflame Turkey selected Dr. Özören as the Most Successful Woman Scientist for 2006. Dr. Özören’s work has been supported via EMBO- SDIG, TÜBİTAK (Turkish Research and Technology Council)- Career (3501), TÜBİTAK -1001, TÜBİTAK 1003 Grants, and Boğaziçi University Research Funds (BAP). Dr. Özören has 15 research articles, 1 book section, 1 invited review, 2 short reviews in high profile journals including Nature, Nature Immunology, Cancer Research, Structure, Journal of Immunology, JBC and others. Her papers have received more than 2300 citations.

Prof. Özören is among the founding members of the Molecular Biology Association of Turkey and is the acting president since July 2014.

Prof. MURAT YALCIN, Ph.D., DVM

- Uludağ University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Physiology.

Dr. Yalcin is appointed as a Professor faculty member in the Department of Physiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Uludag University. He is also a Senior Scientist and Fellow at Pharmaceutical Research Institute in Albany, New York for more than 10 years where he has served as an In Vivo Working Group Leader of several drug discovery studies since 2007. Dr. Yalcin works with scientists and students to identify functions of neuromodulators and/or neurotransmitters and novel strategies and treatments for cancer. Dr. Yalcin and his team have developed partnerships with other academic research centers nationally and worldwide. Dr. Yalcin received his DVM from Ankara University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in 1997. He was then appointed a member of the faculty, and he received his Ph.D. in Veterinary Physiology from Uludag University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in 2003. He did a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Pharmaceutical Research Institute and Medical University of Silesia Department of Physiology. Dr. Yalcin has published more than 100 journal articles, and book chapters as author. His research has focused on tumor and tumor angiogenesis-related studies and neuroscience. A number of Ph.D. and master thesis were also completed under Dr. Yalcin’s supervision.

Prof. Yalda Shokoohinia

- Iran / Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences

Yalda Shokoohinia has completed her Pharm D in 2005 and her PhD in 2011 both from Isfahan University of medical sciences. She started as an assistant professor in Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in 2011 and awarded as associate professor in 2015. She has been the head of department of Pharmacognosy & Biotechnology from 2013 to 2015. She has beenalso head of continuous medical education of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences from 2015. She has published more than 34 articles indexed in ISI web of science, Pubmed, Scopus , etc and has supervised more than 30 theses of Pharm D and MSc students.

Assoc. Prof. Alexandros GEORGAKILAS, PhD

DNA Damage Laboratory, Physics Department, School of Applied Sciences, National Technical University of Athens, Greece

Research interests: Radiation Biology, DNA Damage and Repair, Biomarker discovery for efficient radiation therapy, Bioinformatics

Dr. Alexandros Georgakilas is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, School of Applied Mathematics and Physical Sciences, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece. At Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA, Dr. Georgakilas completed post-doctoral research as a research associate in the Biology Department from 2001-2003 under the supervision of Dr. Betsy Sutherland and developed his own research laboratory as an Associate Professor with tenure at Biology Department of East Carolina University until 2012. Overall, Dr. Georgakilas has been an active non-stop researcher in the field of Radiation Biology for more than twenty (25) years. He has also received awards such as the Young Investigator Travel Award from Radiation Research Society, Radiation Research Society SIT Award, ECU Thomas Harriot College Research Award, and the prestigious Terashima Award from Japan Radiation Research Society. His work at ECU as Principal Investigator (PI) has been funded by various sources like East Carolina University, NCI, NC Biotechnology Center and Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). His quality research work has been published in more than one hundred (100) peer-reviewed high profile journals like Genome Biology, Seminars in Cancer Biology, Radiation Research, Cancer Letters, Cancer Research, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Free Radical Biology and Medicine, Journal of Cell Biology and Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences USA and more than 5500 citations. In addition, he has been able to produce already eight (45) publications from his laboratory at NTUA (Greece). Last but not least and in recognition of his major contributions in the field he has been appointed the Editor-in-Chief in the Journal of Biochemical Technology 2012-2015, Associate Editor Position for Cancer Letters, Radiation Research and several other well-recognized journals. Dr. Georgakilas was invited as a Guest Editor for a Special Issue of Frontiers in Genetics, Seminars in Cancer Biology, Mutation Research, Cancer Letters and Current Molecular Medicine and has hold invited Editorial positions for different book projects (Science Publishers and InTech)

Web page: http://www.semfe.ntua.gr/el/faculty-members/georgakilas-aleksandros
http://dielectricsgroup.physics.ntua.gr/Georgakilas

Pubmed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Georgakilas+A

Google Scholar https://scholar.google.gr/citations?hl=el&user=MAD6KTcAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

Assoc. Prof. Erkan KAPLANOĞLU

- Associated Professor at Marmara University

- Research Professor at Tennessee State University (BARLab.)

------

Dr. Kaplanoglu completed his M.Sc. and Ph.D. thesis at Computer-Control Department of Marmara University, Institute for Graduate Studies in Pure and Applied Sciences, in 2000 and 2006, respectively.

He worked as a research assistant professor at Department of Mechanical Eng. Vanderbilt University, Nashville,TN Faculty of Engineering from 2011 to 2012.

In March 2014, Dr. Kaplanoglu became Associate Professor at Marmara University, Mechatronics Department. He has been awarded YGGDRASIL Award (Young Guest Doctoral Researchers in Norway) in 2010.

In 2013, He introduced the idea and oversaw the establishment of a Biomechatronics& Assistive Technology Lab (BioMechatLab) at Marmara University that has since built a reputation and is ranked second in the country in terms of student involvement and research . The establishment of this lab has led to the collaborations with the departments of biomedical and medical at other partner higher education institutions.

He is currently a visiting researcher at the College of Engineering of Tennessee State University., Nashville,TN

His current research focuses on theBiomechatronics Systems, Lower Limb Prosthesis and Wearable Rehabilitation Devices.

Assoc. Prof. Cenk AKTAŞ, PhD

- Associated Professor at Saarland University and Applied University of Kaiserslautern

Saarbrücken, GERMANY

Assoc. Prof. Cenk Aktas earned his BSc and MSc in Materials Science and Engineering from Middle East Technical University-Turkey and Christian-Albrechts University-Germany, respectively. He joined Leibniz Institute for New Materials (Leibniz-INM) in 2004. After completing his PhD with distinction (summa cum laude) he was appointed as the Deputy Head of CVD Research Division. Between 2010-2015, Aktas acted as the Director of CVD/Biosurfaces Division at Leibniz-INM, which is situated in Saarbrücken/Germany. In addition to his academic duties (acting as senior instructor at Saarland University and Applied University of Kaiserslautern), he gained invaluable experiences at Leibniz-INM since it is a well-known scientific partner to national and international institutes and a provider of research and development for companies throughout the world. Aktas published more than 70 research papers and 10 patents in different fields (on nanomaterials and nanotechnology). He has several prestigious awards including Prof. Werner Petersen Award, Prof. Horst Hardt Award, Prof. Baki Komsuoglu Award, International Nanomedicine Foundation Award and etc.

Assoc. Prof. Mazhar ADLI, PhD

- Associated Professor at Virginia University

Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

The Adli lab is focused on understanding whole-genome level chromatin regulation during normal (Cell, 2013) and disease development. We are specifically focused on understanding aberrant chromatin regulation in cancer progression and chemotherapy resitance Cancer (Cancer Cell, 2012; Nature, 2012, Nature 2011). We are using Genomics and Epigenomics profiling tools such as ChIP-Seq,ATAC-Seq and RNA-Seq to identify disease associated aberrantly regulated genomic region. We then use existing tools and develop novel genome and epigenome profiling and manipulation tools to study epigenetic mechanisms of chromatin structure and function.

Assoc. Prof. Mehmet Remzi DOKMECI, PhD

- Associated Professor at University of California at Los Angeles

Los Angeles ,CA, USA

Mehmet R. Dokmeci is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Radiology and a co-Director of the Center for Minimally Invasive therapeutics at UCLA. Previously he was an Instructor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Trained an electrical engineer, his research is based on the development of novel technologies for the creation of micro and nanodevices for applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. He has a strong background and more than a decade of experience in designing and fabrication of micro and nanoscale devices, microfluidics for applications in biomedical devices, tissue engineering and implantable biosensors. He has been actively involved in research areas such as flexible electronics for monitoring and modulation of wound healing, electrical/electrochemical biosensors and microfluidic systems for organs-on-a-chip applications, as well as 3D bioprinting. . He has extensively published in refereed journals and conferences in these areas and is the author of 116 technical journal articles and 110 conference publications.

Assist. Prof. Athanasia PAVLOPOULOU, PhD

- Assistant Professor at the Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Institute, DokuzEylül University (DEU), Izmir, Turkey

Izmir, TURKEY

Athanasia Pavlopouloureceived her BSc degree in Biology from Western Illinois University (WIU), USA, and her MSc in Molecular Biology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), USA. As a PhD student in the University of Patras, Greece, she developed and applied Bioinformatics tools for the phylogenetic analysis and prediction of protein structure/function. She was also trained in the University of Manchester, UK, in the construction of protein fingerprints. She has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in diverse projects. Her main research interests include application of bioinformatics methods in the analysis of biological sequences, comparative genomics, phylogenetics, next-generation sequencing data analysis, processing of biological networks, and meta-analysis of cancer genetics and genomics data.

Dr. Atakan PEKER, PhD

- Washington State University

Pullman, Washington, USA

Atakan Peker is a graduate of Bogazici University (Mech. Eng. & Physics) and received his Ph.D. in Materials Science from CALTECH. Dr. Peker is co-inventor of Liquidmetal series bulk amorphous alloys and has been a technical leader in its commercial development. His career spans leading roles from start-up to academic research with extensive experience on R&D, product development, intellectual property and technology transfer. He is inventor in more than 40 patents.

Dr. Semir BEYAZ, PhD

- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA

Arriving at CSHL in December 2017, Beyaz has been received three different honors for his research, which looks at how dietary choices impact the body’s immunity against cancer. His research group investigates the causal cellular and molecular mechanisms that link nutrition to organismal health and disease. For example, diets that lead to obesity, such as high fat diets are significant environmental risk factors that influence cancer incidence and progression in several tissues. Although the interactions between tumor cells and the immune system play a significant role in tumorigenesis, little is known about how dietary perturbations impact immunity against cancer. Our studies interrogate the functional consequences of diets on immune recognition and response pathways that play critical role in cancer immunity. By identifying the altered gene expression and metabolic programs in the immune system in response to dietary perturbations, our goal is to uncover mechanistic links that can be therapeutically exploited for the treatment of diseases associated with immune dysfunction such as cancer.

Selin ARSLANHANMEMİŞ

- Founder at ReDis Innovation

Selin Arslanhan Memis is the founder and director of ReDis Innovation, an innovation interface based in Turkey. She specialized in technology and innovation ecosystem. Selin carries out projects on innovation and technology to contribute strategy and policy design for both public and private sectors. ReDis Innovation brings together corporates, startups, researchers and government institutions by establishing joint platforms and developing partnership programs between different actors in the ecosystem.

Previously, she was the Director at TEPAV and established and ran the Innovation Studies Program there. Selin managed over thirty projects and programs such as "Public-Private Partnership Models in High-Tech Industries", "Startup Accelerator Programs", "Design of the Roadmap at the Pharmaceutical R&D Ecosystem".

Selin is also a columnist at Dünya Gazetesi. She holds BA in Molecular Biology and Genetics and also an MBA degree with a thesis on economic valuation of a biotechnology R&D project.