Student research

Within the medical curriculum, student research is integrated into both required and elective courses and is credit-bearing. Beyond the curriculum, students are encouraged to join research groups to enhance their productivity, an important opportunity for those pursuing a career as scientists. Reflecting the students’ high academic potential, the School of Medicine has launched an integrated MD-PhD programme, which has already admitted its first cohort. Over the past five years about 5–10% of the School of Medicine’s roughly 400 annual articles have involved student participation.

The A Look into Science (ALIS) congress, organised every year by School of Medicine students, brings international speakers to campus; ALIS26 “Oncoverse: Horizons in Cancer” hosted speakers from the MIT Media Lab, MD Anderson, King’s College London, the Princess Máxima Center, Humanitas, Radboud and the Technical University of Munich. The university also hosts the Brain Bee Türkiye neuroscience competition for high-school students, the Graduation Projects Fair, the Undiagnosed Hackathon and the TÜBİTAK 2237-A project-writing training. Undergraduate research is funded through ABAPKO student projects under faculty supervision and through TÜBİTAK 2209 and 2247 programmes.

Twenty-seven student research groups, each supervised by a faculty member, give medical students a route into research. Students can join a group from the first year.

• ACURARE & ACUTBAT Undergraduate Research Group — Prof. Yasemin Alanay
• Allergy and Immunology — Assoc. Prof. Burçin Beken
• Anesthesiology — Assoc. Prof. Dilek Altun
• Artificial Intelligence — Assoc. Dr. Deniz Can Alis
• Behavior&Epilepsy&Autism Team — Prof. Dr. Güldal Süyen
• Big Art — Prof. Dr. Mustafa Erkin Arıbal
• Biochemistry — Prof. Dr. Aysel Özpınar
• Breast Health and Cancer — Assoc. Prof. Onur Dülgeroğlu
• Cardiovascular Surgery — Prof. Şahin Şenay
• Dermatology — Assoc. Prof. Andac Salman
• Endocrine Surgery — Assoc. Prof. Enes Arıkan
• Gastrointestinal surgery — Prof. Dr. Erman Aytaç
• Gynecologic oncology — Prof. Dr. Faruk Köse
• Hematologic Research Group — Asist. Prof. Ant Uzay
• Histology — Assoc. Prof. Merve Açıkel Elmas
• Medical Ethics — Prof. Dr. Yeşim Işıl Ülman
• Neuroscience — Prof. Dr. Filiz Onat
• Neurologic Studies — Prof. Dr. Dilaver Kaya
• Obstetric Surgery and IVF — Prof. Hale Göksever Çelik
• OMICS — Prof. Ahmet Tarık Baykal
• Oncology — Prof. Dr. Özlem Er
• Orthopedics — Asist. Prof. Mustafa Sungur
• Pancreatic Diseases — Prof. Dr. Güralp Onur Ceyhan
• Parasitology — Prof. Özgür Kurt
• Pediatrics Research Group — Prof. Dr. Serdar Beken
• Reproductive endocrinology and infertility research group — Prof. Dr. Bülent Tıraş
• Spine Health — Prof. Dr. Ahmet Alanay

• Rotations: many research groups on this portal accept rotation students; look for “Open to rotation students” on a group page and write to the principal investigator.
• Internships: the ACURARE internship programme, ASEGEM internship programmes and the Biodesign Center’s internship programme take applications each year.
• Graduate study: the Graduate School of Health Sciences, the Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences and the Graduate School of Social Sciences offer master’s and PhD programmes from Neuroscience and Medical Biotechnology to Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering; a PhD Achievement Scholarship is announced each semester.
• Ethics: student projects with human participants go through the Clinical Research Ethics Committee or ATADEK; projects with laboratory animals go through ACU-HADYEK. See Ethics committees.