Dr. Oktay I. Kaplan
Assistant Professor
School of Life and Natural Sciences, Abdullah Gül University (Türkiye)
Dr. Oktay I. Kaplan is an Assistant Professor at the School of Life and Natural Sciences, Abdullah Gül University (Türkiye), with over 15 years of experience in molecular genetics, cilia biology, and rare disease research. He received his PhD in Genetics from University College Dublin, where he used Caenorhabditis elegans to study mechanisms of ciliary protein trafficking under the supervision of Prof. Oliver Blacque.
He subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (Berlin) as an EMBO and Helmholtz fellow, focusing on epigenetic regulation of cell fate decisions. Since establishing his independent research group in 2017, Dr. Kaplan has led interdisciplinary research combining functional genomics, advanced imaging, and bioinformatics to investigate the molecular basis of ciliopathies and neurodevelopmental disorders, working closely with clinical geneticists for translational impact.
