Dr. Mesude Bıçak, a 2006 Fall Semester graduate of Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU) Faculty of Engineering, Department of Computer Engineering, presented her study awarded at the American Society for Human Genetics (ASHG) 2018 Conference. The conference was held at the State of California, USA and with the global participation of 8500 researchers. Last year in October, the conference was held at San Diego and researches on human genetic diseases were presented. Dr. Bıçak advanced to the semi-finals of the competition, to which many researchers from world’s pioneering universities and institutions participated in, and earned the right to receive a monetary award. By developing bio-statistical analyses, Dr. Bıçak studied the mutations and related genes causing prostate cancer. In the results, Dr. Bıçak confirmed a statistical connection between the MSMB and SNHG11 genes which cause cancer. The results were confirmed in the laboratory environment by using CRISPR/Cas9 genetic mutation technology.
Who is Dr. Mesude Bıçak?
In February 2006, she finished her undergraduate education (BSc) at Eastern Mediterranean University Computer Engineering Department in three and a half years. In September 2006, she went on to continue her graduate studies on Software Engineering in Sheffield University, UK. In September 2007, she got a double scholarship from British Telecom (British telecommunication company) and the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) thus; continued with her doctorate studies on Computational Biology at the same university. She successfully got her doctorate degree in February 2011. She continued her career as a researcher at the Oxford University in the field of statistical analysis of bioinformatics – protein and gene sequences on a digital platform. Dr. Bıçak became a specialist in this field over a short period of time and in 2013, was appointed to the position of Expert Researcher and became the Team Leader for Ocean Sampling Day project; European Union a FP7 project.
In order to analyse the ocean water’s ecosystem and biology map, this project gathered samples from all around the world. She organised the gathering of these samples, a process spreading over 7 continents and 500 spots, and coordinated the sequencing process of these samples at
Max Plank Institute (Germany) where the sample analyses was performed by a team of 150 researchers.
By coordinating with Prof. Dr. Nedime Serakıncı, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Terin Adalı, Prof. Dr. İlkay Salihoğlu from the Near East University; and with Assist. Prof. Dr. Burak Çiçek from the Eastern Mediterranean University, she included the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) waters in the research. In January 2016, she decided to continue her researches at the Mount Sinai Hospital’s (America’s largest hospital chain) Faculty of Medicine located in New York. For the last three years, she has been working with Assoc. Prof. Robert Klein, an important name in the prostate cancer field. With her last success, she was promoted as a Senior Research Scientist.
