Speaker

Tuğçe Aktaş

Max Planck Institute, Berlin

Tugce Aktas received a BSc degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics from METU (Turkey) in 2007. She got a PhD degree from EMBL Heidelberg (Germany) in 2011 after completing her dissertation on the role transposable elements in gene expression regulation during mouse embryogenesis in the group of Dr. François Spitz. In 2012, Dr. Aktas joined the group of Prof. Asifa Akhtar at Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg (Germany). As a postdoctoral researcher, Dr. Aktas identified an RNA helicase that is unwinding the RNA secondary structures caused by the expansion of transposable elements in the human genome. In 2018, Dr. Aktas is selected as a Max-Planck Research Group Leader and she started her independent research group called “Quantitative RNA Biology” at Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin (Germany) in December 2018. Her current research focuses on finding RNA binding proteins that are suppressing and/or neutralizing the threats posed by the transposable elements and how this cross talk is fueling genome evolution. Dr. Aktas is teaching MSc and PhD courses as a guest lecturer at Free University Berlin and Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. Dr. Aktas’ current research is supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in addition to Max-Planck-Society. 
The complete list of publications Dr. Aktas authored: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1599-9454