Biography
I obtained my undergraduate degree from Bilkent University in Ankara in 2003, and my Ph.D. at LMU Munich while working at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, focusing on axon regeneration in the injured spinal cord. In 2009, I moved to Genentech in South San Francisco as a postdoc, where I worked on non-apoptotic caspase-3 actions in neurodegeneration, traumatic brain injury, and whole-brain tissue clearing to assess neurodegeneration.
Currently, I am Director of the Institute for Intelligent Biotechnologies (iBIO) at Helmholtz Munich and Professor at LMU Munich. I am very excited about developing and implementing technologies to enable personalized treatment of complicated diseases — from wildDISCO and DeepMACT to DISCO-MS, MouseMapper, and SCP-Nano. Besides chasing breakthrough science with my team, I enjoy sports, photography, reading, and cooking.
Research interests
Whole-body tissue clearing, light-sheet microscopy, AI-based organ mapping, spatial omics, and nanotechnology for precision medicine and neurodegeneration.
Professional career
- PresentDirector, Institute for Intelligent Biotechnologies (iBIO), Helmholtz Munich; Professor, LMU Munich
- 2009–2016Postdoctoral fellow, Genentech, South San Francisco — neurodegeneration and whole-brain tissue clearing
- 2003–2009PhD research, LMU Munich / Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology — axon regeneration after spinal cord injury
Education
- 2003–2009Ph.D., LMU Munich / Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology
- 2003B.Sc., Bilkent University, Ankara
Research
MouseMapper
Whole-body nervous & immune architecture in 3D
SCP-Nano
Nanocarriers traced cell-by-cell through the whole mouse
wildDISCO
Whole-body cellular maps with standard antibodies
DISCO-MS
Spatial proteomics inside cleared organs
SHANEL
Transparent human organs at centimeter scale
VesSAP
Every capillary in the brain — mapped by AI
DeepMACT
AI-detected cancer metastasis across the whole body
Contact information
