For Women in Science Scholarship for TÜBA Young Academy Member Dr. Aktuna
TÜBA-GEBİP Award winner and Ankara University Department of Biomedical Engineering Faculty Member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Açelya Yılmazer Aktuna has been awarded with the "For Women in Science" scholarship by L'Oréal Türkiye and UNESCO National Commission for Türkiye.
In 2023, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Açelya Yılmazer Aktuna was one of the 4 women scientists awarded with a scholarship by the L'Oréal-UNESCO "For Women in Science" program, which has been promoting women's contribution to science for 21 years and rewarding the contribution of women in science.
Aktuna talked about her project that won her the scholarship saying: "We aimed to use innovative technologies called spatial transcriptome, which allows us to study the relationships between different types of immune cells and cancer stem cells in the tumor within the tissue. This will allow us to learn more about the interactions between these cells at the molecular level and develop new treatment approaches. It will pave the way for the identification of new targets for the development of more effective treatments, especially in drug-resistant cancer types where cancer stem cells are active. Nano technological systems or drug molecules can be designed against these new targets."
Who is Assoc. Prof. Dr. Açelya Yılmazer Aktuna?
In 2008, she received her master's degree in cancer immunotherapy at the University of Nottingham. In 2012, she completed her PhD at the Nanomedicine Laboratory at University College London and returned to Türkiye in 2013. In 2013, he received the Best Young Researcher Award from the Society of Medical Biology and Genetics, the TÜBA-GEBİP Award in 2018, the Ankara University Incentive Award in 2019, and the Young Scientist Award from the International Advanced Materials Association in 2022. Dr. Yılmazer's research group specializes in the use of nanomaterials in cancer and regenerative medicine. Dr. Yılmazer is an associate professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Ankara University and has been the deputy director of the Stem Cell Institute since 2016.