2023 TÜBA Academy Prizes Announced
International TÜBA Academy Awards, which are organised under the auspices of the Presidency, found their owners. The awards for Prof. Dr. Caner Süsal, Prof. Dr. Serdar Durdağı, and Prof. Dr. Derviş Karaboğa will be presented by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the TÜBA-TÜBİTAK Science Awards Ceremony to be held at the Presidential Complex.
A total of 3 scientists in 2 categories, namely Health and Life Sciences and Basic and Engineering Sciences, were deemed worthy of the 2023 "TÜBA International Academy Awards", which are open to all scientists in the world, within the scope of TÜBA's mission to encourage and appreciate scientists.
President Şeker stated that the intensity of applications for the 2023 "TÜBA International Academy Awards" is gratifying for science. He reiterated that scientists have been nominated for the award program by TÜBA members, university presidencies in Türkiye, Science Academies associated with TÜBA, Inter-Academy organizations, and other invited scientific institutions since 2015. He congratulated the scientists, who were announced as a result of long and meticulous evaluations and to whom the Academy Award Medal will be presented, for their original, pioneering and groundbreaking research. President Prof. Dr. Muzaffer Şeker reminded that, since the inception of the award program, one of the awards has been alternately given to scientists who are Turkish citizens or who have studies related or connected with Türkiye; and emphasized that the related award in 2023 was given to Prof. Dr. Caner Süsal and Prof. Dr. Serdar Durdağı in the Health and Life Sciences category.
As a result of the opinions of domestic and foreign referees and the evaluation of the field committees, the TÜBA Academy Council awarded the TÜBA International Academy Awards;
In the Health and Life Sciences category, the 2023 TÜBA Academy Award was awarded to Prof. Dr. Caner Süsal, Faculty Member of Koç University Faculty of Medicine, for his outstanding work in organ transplantation with his studies in transplantation of highly sensitized patients, the role of non-HLA immunity and the CD30 molecule in the alloimmune response. He was honored for his contributions to organ transplantation through his work on the induction of insensitivity to the kidney allograft, the identification of markers reflecting the balance between the effector and regulatory components of the alloimmune response, and the preparation of international guidelines.
In the same category, the 2023 TÜBA Academy Award was awarded to the Dean of Bahçeşehir University Faculty of Pharmacy Prof. Dr. Serdar Durdağı for the development of new codes for the creation of ligand-based models with machine learning approaches, was chosen due to his contributions to academia and the pharmaceutical industry through the virtual screening of ultra-large molecule databases, the design of new drug molecules and the hERG1 3D potassium ion channel models (Durdagi/Noskov hERG1 K Models), which are mentioned in the literature with the researchers own name.
In the category of Science and Engineering Sciences; 2023 TÜBA Academy Award was awarded to Prof. Dr. Derviş Karaboğa, a faculty member of the Department of Computer Engineering at Erciyes University's Faculty of Engineering and the Director of the Artificial Intelligence Center, his significant contributions to the field of engineering. He particularly distinguished himself by developing the "Artificial Bee Colony algorithm," an optimization algorithm widely used in artificial intelligence applications, thus making important contributions to the world of science and the advancement of technologies. Additionally, his original contributions in applying his research to Energy Efficiency and Health have led to his recognition in these areas as well.
The TÜBA International Academy Awards consist of the Academy Medal and an approximate amount of 30,000 US dollars. These awards are presented to scientists who have distinguished themselves in their own fields through "original, pioneering, and groundbreaking" research.
Prof. Dr. Caner Süsal, He was born in Konya in 1961. He graduated from Heidelberg University in Germany in 1986 and received the title of Professor from the same university in 2005, and in 2012, he became an Academic Director. Until 2021, Professor Süsal worked at the same university. He has been honored with numerous scientific awards and was selected as the New Thought Leader of the World Transplantation Society in 2009. He served as the President of the German Immunogenetics Society from 2010 to 2012 and held positions on the boards of national and international transplantation societies, including Eurotransplant, for many years. In 2021, he became the President of the Koç University Transplantation Immunology Research Excellence Center TIREX, which is supported by the Council of Europe. He continues to teach at both Koç University and Heidelberg University.
Prof. Dr. Serdar Durdağı, He was born in 1978. He graduated from the Department of Chemistry at Hacettepe University in 2001. He completed his doctoral education as a Marie-Curie fellow under the European Union's 6th Framework Program at Freie Universität Berlin and his doctoral thesis was awarded the highest distinction, 'summa cum laude.' He began serving as a Professor in 2018. He has publications in international peer-reviewed journals, conference papers, and books. He has participated in numerous national and international projects. Serdar Durdağı has focused on computational and medical chemistry applications in biological systems. To achieve this, he writes and develops programming codes for various biological problems alongside molecular modeling applications. Dr. Durdağı's 3D potassium ion channel models known by his name (Durdagi/Noskov hERG1 K Models) are still widely used in academia and the pharmaceutical industry.
Prof. Dr. Derviş Karaboğa, was born in 1965, K.Maraş. He received his bachelor's degree from Erciyes University Electronics Engineering Department in 1983, his master's degree from ITU Electronic Communications in 1988, and his doctorate degree from Cardiff University School of Engineering in 1994. He published high-impact scientific studies in research areas such as Artificial Intelligence, Optimization, Evolutionary and Swarm Intelligence Based Algorithms, and introduced a new artificial intelligence optimization algorithm called “Artificial Bee Colony (ABC)” to the literature in 2005. These works were cited 18864 times in WoS and his h-index is 41, and in Google Scholar his h-index is 63 with 48257 citations. He is co-author of the book "Intelligent Optimization Techniques" published by "Springer London" in 2000 and "Artificial Intelligence Optimization Algorithms" published in Turkey in 2004. Due to his high-impact studies, he was selected for "Highly Cited Researchers" list by "Clarivate Analytics" between 2016 and 2020, and in the "100 Turks Leading Science" list published by "Turkish Time" Magazine in 2017. In 2017, he was deemed worthy of the "Mehmet Akif Ersoy Science Award" in the field of Science. In 2019, he was awarded the "Strategic Vision Award" by TASAM. In 2020, he was awarded the "Outstanding Service Award" by the Turkish Board of Computer Engineering Department Heads - UBMK.