MBG492 Thesis Defense Announcement
Dear Bilkent MBG Community,
It is our pleasure to invite you to join us for the MBG492 Thesis Defense, which will take place on 2–3 June 2026, from 09:30 to 16:30, in SB-Z14, located in the B-Block of the Faculty of Science.
Over the course of two days, our senior undergraduate students will present their thesis projects.
Monday, 2 June 2026
09:30–10:30
Kayra Akbulut (Advisor: Prof. Dr. Sreeparna Banerjee)
Thesis Title: Effect of Nutrient Restriction and MEK Inhibition (U0126) on Translational Control in Colorectal Cancer Cells
10:30–11:30
Selin Ada Çırpan (Advisor: Prof. Dr. Turgay Dalkara)
Thesis Title: Assessment of Migraine Allodynia Before and After CSD Induction in Transgenic Mice Using Von Frey Filaments
11:30–12:30
Demir Erensoy (Advisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Pınar Önal)
Thesis Title: Quantitative Phenotyping of Drosophila Larval Cuticles from Bicoid Effector Domain Deletion Mutant
12:30-13:30
Break
13:30–14:30
Semih Ertürk (Advisor: Prof. Dr. Turgay Dalkara)
Thesis Title: Quantitative Analysis of Layer-Specific Cortical Microglial Responses Following Glycogenolysis Inhibition
14:30–15:30
Derin Güler (Advisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Onur Çizmecioğlu)
Thesis Title: The Effects of AKR3 Overexpression on Alpelisib Sensitivity and PI3K and MAPK Signaling Pathways in Alpelisib-Resistant Luminal A Breast Cancer Cell Lines
15:30–16:30
Zülal Şevval Yılmazer (Advisor: Prof. Dr. Michelle Adams)
Thesis Title: Comparison of Manual and Automated DAPI Counting Methods and Their Effect on Neural Cell Marker Normalization in Mouse and Zebrafish Brain Sections
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Tuesday, 3 June 2026
09:30–10:30
Defne Şenkul (Advisor: Prof. Dr. Özlen Konu)
Thesis Title: Multimodal Analysis of Trifluoperazine Effect on AB Zebrafish Larva: Linking Behavioral Patterns to Molecular Outcomes and Usage of Standardized Locomotion Analysis for Detecting Group Patterns
10:30–11:30
Sena Tekin (Advisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Ilyas Chachoua)
Thesis Title: A Multi-Omic Pipeline for Genome-Wide Gene Tagging Prediction in IMR90 and K562 Cell Lines
11:30–12:30
Elif Beste Tezcan (Advisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Pınar Önal)
Thesis Title: Robustness of Early Embryonic Patterning to Temperature: A Comparative Analysis of Hunchback and Even-Skipped Across Isogenic and Genetically Diverse Drosophila Populations
12:30-13:30
Break
13:30–14:30
Elif Gülşen Kaya (Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ayça Arslan)
Thesis Title: Transgenerational Effects of Past Microbiota Absence in Danio rerio
14:30–15:30
Pelin Sağdemir (Advisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Ilyas Chachoua)
Thesis Title: In Silico Mapping of the Mutant Calreticulin Interactome: Identifying Novel Pathogenic Protein Partners in MPNs
15:30–16:30
Damla Küçük (Advisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Emre Aksoy)
Thesis Title: Tissue Culture Optimization Following Transformation for CRISPR Editing in Soybean (Zoom)
We warmly invite all students, faculty members, researchers, alumni, and guests to attend and support our graduating students as they present the outcomes of their thesis research.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics
Bilkent University
