Moleküler Biyoloji ve Genetik Seminerleri: Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Gülnihal Özcan

Moleküler Biyoloji ve Genetik Bölümümüzün organize ettiği seminer serisinin yeni konuğu, Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Gülnihal Özcan (Koç Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Tıbbi Farmakoloji Anabilim Dalı) olacak.

Dr. Özcan’ın “Investigating the Genetic Dependencies of Synergy in Cancer Combination Therapy Using Functional Genomic” başlıklı konuşmasını 21 Aralık Perşembe 16.00-17.00 arasında B-212 no’lu salonda takip edebilirsiniz.

Özet: Improving patient outcomes in cancer patients requires a rationate combination of anticancer drugs. However, the majority of combination regimens used in clinical settings stem from empirical approaches that fail to consider mechanism of action and lose out on opportunities to gradually enhance therapy outcomes. For designing rational combinations of anticancer agents, it is imperative to decipher the genetic vulnerabilities and dependencies causing synergistic interactions. Functional genomics screens have proven to be effective tools of elucidating the molecular mechanisms behind drug action and pharmacological interactions. These screens have identified genetic dependencies of cancer cells for chemoresistance and drug responsiveness. These screens can also open the door to the discovery of new compounds that have strong synergistic effects against cancer. In this seminar, the efficient use of functional genomics approaches to delineate the mechanism of synergism in cancer combination therapy will be discussed.

Konuşmacı Hakkında: Asst. Prof. Gulnihal Ozcan received her MD degree from Hacettepe University School of Medicine in 2007. She completed her residency in Medical Pharmacology at Ankara University School of Medicine in 2011 and investigated the signaling mechanisms of G-protein coupled receptors. In the context of public service responsibility, she was employed at the Ministry of Health Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency and conducted studies on pharmacovigilance at the Turkish Pharmacovigilance Center. During the same period, she gained experience in bioinformatics and systems biology at Middle East Technical University in the context of a special student program in the Physics Department and the Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. program. She conducted her post-doctoral studies on ovarian cancer at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Department of Experimental Therapeutics. Since 2016, she has been conducting studies on the mechanisms of chemoresistance in gastric cancer, breast cancer, and ovarian cancer at Koç University School of Medicine, and Koç University Research Center for Translational Medicine. Her major research interests are mechanisms and evolutionary dynamics of chemoresistance in cancer, mechanisms of synergism in anti-cancer drug combinations, tumor heterogeneity and plasticity, tumor microenvironment, and identification of novel biomarkers and drug targets using the tools of systems pharmacology, single-cell omics, functional genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, and machine learning.