Researchers

TUNCAY GÖKSEL

Prof. Dr. Tuncay Göksel graduated from Ege University Faculty of Medicine in 1989. He completed his residency at the Department of Lung and Chest Diseases at the same university. He became an assistant professor in 2000, associate professor in 2003, and professor in 2009. He served as the Chief Physician of Ege University Hospital between 2018 and 2021. He served as the Chair of  the Turkish Thoracic Society and the Thoracic Oncology Working Group for two terms. He has been actively coordinating EgeTPRC and the Artificial Intelligence Research Group. His research interests lie primarily in the area of interdisciplinary and translational research for the diagnosis and the treatment of lung cancer. In this context, he took part in many international drug development researches as well as TUBITAK and BAP projects as a primary or assistant researcher.

OZLEM YESIL CELIKTAS

Dr. Ozlem Yesil Celiktas is a chemical engineer from Ankara University with M.Sc. degree in engineering from Chalmers University of Technology and a PhD in biotechnology from Ege University. After gaining skills and experience in industry, Dr. Yesil-Celiktas has become an academic associate at the Department of Bioengineering, Ege University in 2007, established her own research group, mentored engineers and collaborated with other researchers on international level. The current research activities are circled around microfluidic technologies and organ-on-chip platforms for disease modelling to recapitulate tissue functions at organ level to have a deeper understanding of various diseases and novel biomaterials for these platforms. Brain, lung, their interactions along with the blood-brain and epithelial barriers in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative and respiratory diseases are of prime interest. Her contributions to science and society will continue with increased publication records, mentoring young scientists by providing solid and up-to-date knowledge, supporting start-ups and conducting research for human welfare.

PETEK BALLAR KIRMIZIBAYRAK

Prof. Dr. Petek Ballar Kırmızıbayrak graduated from Ege University Faculty of Pharmacy in 2001. In 2007, she completed his PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore Department of Molecular Medicine; She became an associate professor in 2012 and a professor in 2018. Her main fields of study are the investigation of the degradation mechanisms of proteins associated with various diseases, especially diabetes, cancer, cystic fibrosis and neurodegenerative diseases, and the regulation of telomerase activity. In this context, she took place as a primary researcher in many TUBITAK and European Union projects; she has been a founding member of the Turkish Molecular Biology Association and the EU Proteostasis Network. Her work has been awarded by TÜBA-GEBİP, BAGEP, Loreal Science Women various national and international awards such as UMBI Distinguished Service Award, UMB Merit Award, Young Investigator Award by Protland Press. In addition to her scientific publications, her consultancy to young scientists has also been appreciated by Higher Education Institutions in different platforms such as the most doctoral dissertation award in the field of health.

RALPH MEUWISSEN

Prof. Dr. Ralph Meuwissen received his MSc in biochemistry from the Faculty of Science at  Leiden University, followed by a PhD in molecular cell genetics from the Faculty of Animal Sciences at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He performed the major part of his postdoctoral studies at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in which he specialized in the field of cancer genetics and design and development of advanced animal models for human cancer. As of 2006 he became junior group leader working for the medical research board INSERM, at the Institute Albert Bonniot in Grenoble, France. During this period his research was focused on the study of molecular mechanisms that govern lung cancer progression and therapy response. For this he continued the use of more advanced genetically engineered mouse models for lung cancer. In 2012 , Dr. Meuwissen became researcher at Dokuz Eylül University, followed by his transfer to Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Institute (IBG). His research interest remained in lung cancer but with more emphasis on translational applications. In 2020 he became Professor at Ege University and member of the Ege TPRC. His current research interests lie in the development of more advanced animal models such Patient Derived Xenotransplant lung cancer models in a humanized mice background as well as further development and fine-tuning of genetically engineered mice models. These preclinical models will be used to elucidate the role that tumor heterogeneity plays during progress and (immuno)therapy response in human lung cancer. During his work as researcher, Dr. Meuwissen was leader in several international, European projects as well as more recently in several TUBITAK projects.

OZLEM GOKSEL

AYŞE CANER

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ayşe Caner graduated from Istanbul University Faculty of Medicine. She completed her PhD at the Department of Parasitology at the Ege University. She worked as a researcher at department of microbiology in Singleton Hospital-UK in 2006. She had worked at department of Experimental Therapeutic in The University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center for two years. She completed second PhD on cancer biology and immunology at Ege University in 2019. She is doing third PhD on bioinformatics. She is currently working at Ege University Cancer Research Center, department of Basic Oncology and department of Parasitology. Her research focuses on translational studies related to the discovering of diagnosis, monitoring and treatment biomarkers, immunotherapy and microbiota on lung cancers.

FUSUN PELIT

Assoc. Dr. Füsun PELİT graduated from Ege University, Faculty of Science, Department of Chemistry in 1999, and completed her master's and then doctorate studies in the Analytical Chemistry Department of the Institute of Science of the same university in 2009. Since 2000, he has worked on developing electroanalytical, spectroscopic and chromatographic methods in the Faculty of Science, Department of Chemistry, and after receiving the title of associate professor in 2015, he continued to serve as a faculty member. The main scientific research areas of Füsun PELİT, who has been actively working in EgeSAM research group since 2015; development of bioanalytical methods that can be used in cancer pre-diagnosis and treatment, biomarker analysis with chromatographic techniques, metabolite determinations, analytical separation methods and environmental analysis. There are many projects, patent applications and publications involving translational studies on analytical chemistry and separation science.

ASLI TETİK VARDARLI

Assoc. Dr. Aslı Tetik Vardarlı graduated from the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science in Ege University, in 2004. She completed her master's degree in the Faculty of Medicine as a research assistant in Ege University in 2006 and her doctorate at the same department in 2012. Since 2019, she has been working as an associate professor at the Deparment of Medical Biology, Faculty of Medicine in Ege University, and has been an active member of EgeTPRC since 2016. Her main areas of interest include molecular biology and cancer biomarkers. She has been conducting research on next generation sequence analysis technologies in the molecular diagnosis and follow-up of lung cancer. She also takes part in TÜBİTAK and BAP projects as an executive or assistant researcher.

ÖZKAN DOĞANAY

Dr. Ozkan Doganay is a medical physicist working with radiologists, lung physiologists, physicists and engineers to develop functional imaging techniques for early detection and quantification of lung diseases. Dr. Doganay pursued undergraduate studies in Physics at Ege University. He completed his M.Sc. in the Department of Biomedical Physics at Ryerson University. He received his Ph.D. in the Department of Medical Biophysics from the University of Western Ontario in 2015, where he earned a national cancer-research-training award (CIHR in CaRTT). He worked as a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Oncology at the University of Oxford between 2015-2019. His research focuses on the development of specialized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods for detection of functional (i.e. gas exchange) abnormalities in lungs associated with thoracic radiation treatment of cancer and lung ventilation disorders including Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Deceases (COPD) and asthma. He is currently an Assistant Prof at Ege University in the Institute of Health Sciences.  

AYKUT GÜVENSEN

Prof. Dr. Aykut GÜVENSEN graduated from Ege University Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, Department of Botany in 1991. He was appointed as a Research Assistant to the department he graduated from in 1992. In 1994, respectively, in the Department of Biology, Institute of Science, Ege University. He completed his undergraduate and his PhD in 1998. He was appointed as Associate Professor in 2005 and Professor in 2013 in the Department of Botany in the same department. Since January 2017, Chest Diseases, Immunology and Allergic Diseases Specialist Assoc. Dr. Together with Özlem GÖKSEL, in order to facilitate the routine clinical follow-up of pollen-sensitive asthma, allergic rhinitis and similar allergic diseases, taking into account the meteorological data, she took part in the creation of the Pollen Allergy Bulletin for İzmir province for the first time in our country. In addition, with the aim of integrating this system with its counterparts across Europe, in 2018, under the leadership of Charite University Berlin, Germany, it participated in multi-center international studies called AIT2020 where atmospheric pollen count and these pollen count data were used for the monitoring of Asthma and Allergic diseases in all Southern European countries.

YASİN KAYMAZ