TIEU-LAN CHAU
Dr. Tieu-Lan Chau received her Pharmacy degree at University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Hochiminh City (Vietnam) in 2001. She briefly worked as production manager in Sanofi-Aventis between 2001-2003. Dr. Chau made her MSc studies in Health and Medicine Engineering at University of Joseph Fourier (Grenoble, France) between 2003-2005. Then she moved to Belgium to make her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences at University of Liege. Following her graduation in December 2011, she continued to make her postdoctoral studies at Liege between 2012-2015 on the identification of signaling network governing cytokine production macrophages. Dr. Chau joined to Bilkent University as an instructor in 2015 and gave several courses for two years. Dr. Chau involved as a postdoc between 2017-2020 in a TÜBİTAK 1001 project on the identification of chemotherapy resistance in HCC. Since 2020 she has been working as Senior Scientist and Lab Director in Dr. Göktuna's Lab. Dr. Chau is an expert of signal transduction research via in vitro and in vivo models of tumorigenesis. Currently, she is working on identification of signaling pathways regulating apoptosis, EMT and drug resistance in gastrointestinal cancers.
ÖZLEM AYBÜKE IŞIK
ozlemaybuke.isik@bilkent.edu.tr
Dr. Işık received her BSc. Degree with honors from Izmir Institute of Technology, Turkey. There, she worked on antimycotic drug resistance in yeast for a while. Then she moved to Portugal, where she gained her Ph.D. from Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia, Lisbon. During her Ph.D., she worked on vertebral patterning during mouse development under the supervision of Moises Mallo. Mainly, she explored the involvement of conserved regions of Hox genes in vertebral patterning with transgenic embryos. After completing her Ph.D., Dr. Işık returned to her home country and worked as a whole exome sequence analyst in a medical laboratory. However, Dr. Işık is now back where she belongs (to the lab) and working on the PI3K signaling pathway at Bilkent University under Onur Çizmecioğlu. Currently, she is trying to understand how different PI3K isoforms generate distinct signals when activated, and those signaling events go awry during cellular transformation.
ESİN DEMİR
Dr. Demir is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Tayfun Özçelik’s Lab at Bilkent University. She received her BSc. degree with honors from Bilkent University, Department of MBG in 2012. Dr. Demir made her MSc studies in Department of Medical Genetics at Turgut Ozal Medical School in 2012-2014. She worked on thymoquinone effect on brain tumor stem cells. Additionally, she became the advisor of the university’s IGEM team and participated in IGEM Giant Jamboree as youngest judge from Turkey in 2014. Later, she joined Prof. Aşkın Kocabaş’s group at Koç University in 2015 as PhD student. Her Ph.D. project aimed to investigate dynamics of pattern formation and emergence of swarming in C. elegans. She also contributed on dopamine signalling in C. elegans and active nematics in chaining B. subtilis projects. After completing her PhD, Dr. Demir joined Prof. Serim İlday’s group in Bilkent University/UNAM as post-doctoral researcher in 2019. She studied active turbulence in P. aeruginosa and contributed on several projects: Adaptive behavior of cancer cells in circulation, hyperuniformity and pattern formation in dissipative colloidal system. As part-time instructor, she gave General Biology course at Çankaya University. Recently, she joined Ozcelik’s group to study the genetics of obesity in Turkish families.