MD Anderson Cancer Center
I received my MD degree from the University of Istanbul, where I completed residency in internal medicine and training in hematology. I did my postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, specializing in T-cell immunology, cell therapy, and single-cell analytic approaches. During my postdoctoral fellowship, I focused primarily on viral immunology, leading to the development of novel rapid expansion protocols for virus-specific T-cells, particularly targeting BKV and CMV, which have been crucial in treating viral infections in immunocompromised patients.
This work has been published in renowned journals, including my study on allogeneic BK virus-specific T-cells for PML published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and my research on virus-specific CD161+ T cells and their resistance to chemotherapy in AML, published in Blood.
Currently, I am a faculty member in the Department of Leukemia at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, focusing on cellular therapies and immunotherapeutic approaches for targeting leukemia.