Prof. Dr. Neşe
Atabey

Nese Atabey is a Principle Investigator at the Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center (IBG)& Director of IBG Biobank while also working as a professor in the Department of Medical Biology and Genetics at the Faculty of Medicine and Galen Research Center at Izmir Tinaztepe University. Prof. Atabey has over 25 years of career in cancer research and carried out several research projects through a translational approach. She has authored/co-authored over 60 publications and holds patents in the field of growth factor signaling, cancer, and metastasis. Her studies have primarily focused on the in vitro and in vivo functions of HGF/c-Met signaling in the development, progression, and therapy response in liver cancer. She has been very interested in understanding how HGF/c-Met signaling pathways interact with other signaling pathways and non-coding RNAs to coordinate complex processes in cancer metastasis. Her laboratory has made significant contributions to understanding the mechanisms that regulate aggressive phenotype, drug resistance, and stem cell maintenance in HCC and has defined novel regulatory roles of long non-coding RNAs and micro RNAs in the regulation of c-Met signaling in liver cancer. The team has developed 3D metastasis models, such as a Lab on a chip system, a 3D multi-cellular cell culture system, and a zebrafish model to predict the aggressiveness and organ-specific metastasis ability of tumor cells. In addition to research, she is highly committed to teaching and educating future scientists and physicians.