PI
Pinar Onal, PhD
Pinar graduated from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics in the Middle East Technical University (METU), in 2005. After that she moved to Sabanci University in Istanbul to do her Master’s studies in the laboratory of Dr. Batu Erman on the discovery of plant factors affecting mammalian NF-kB signaling. She did her PhD in the laboratory of Nikolaus Rajewsky at Max Delbrueck Center in Berlin and worked on regeneration using planaria Schmidtea mediterranea. She wrote her thesis on the conservation of pluripotency determinants between mammalian and planarian stem cells. Her interest in evolution and development carried her across the ocean to New York University to work on Drosophila embryogenesis together with Prof. Dr. Steve Small. There, she worked on one of the most famous proteins in the Drosophila and developmental biology field, Bicoid. Together with her colleagues and collaborators in the University of Chicago and Harvard, she investigated the evolutionary history of Bicoid’s anterior functions and structure using in vivo and in vitro techniques. She expanded her work in Shelby Blythe’s lab in Northwestern University to include live imaging and epigenetics. She moved to Bilkent University to start her own lab in September 2022. Her lab uses Drosophila embryogenesis as a model to understand mechanisms that contribute to development of a body plan from a single multipotent cell. They employ in vitro and in vivo genetic and genomic assays as well as live and fixed cell imaging technologies to investigate the interactions between transcription factors and DNA that lead to precise spatio-temporal regulation of morphogenesis in Drosophila embryo.
Graduate Students
Dilan Akdoğan, MSc Student
Dilan graduated from Bilkent University Molecular Biology and Genetics Department in 2021. During her undergraduate education, she volunteered in Dr. Murat Cevher’s laboratory where she worked on reconstitution of human Mediator complex using baculovirus expression system. Her interest in protein function led her to join Dr. Pınar Önal’s laboratory for her MSc studies in 2022. She is working on the intrinsically disordered effector domains of the Drosophila melanogaster transcription factor Bicoid, and their role on its developmental functions. She enjoys reading, listening to music, baking, and seeing her flies thrive.
Tunahan Çalıkoğlu, MSc Student
Tunahan graduated from the Molecular Biology and Genetics department at İzmir Institute of Technology in 2022. As an undergraduate, he worked in the Doğanlar/Frary Lab on plant molecular genetics and breeding, where he participated in research involving Arabidopsis thaliana. Tunahan is currently pursuing a Master’s in Molecular Biology and Genetics, with a focus on developmental biology and Drosophila melanogaster. His passion for model organism studies guided him to join Dr. Pınar Önal’s laboratory for his MSc in 2023. He is currently investigating phenotypic variations in isogenic Drosophila lines. In his free time, Tunahan enjoys running, baking, and reading. You can follow him on instagram at @tunahancalik .
Kasım Taha Karagöz, PhD Student
Kasım Taha Karagöz is a PhD student at Önal Lab in Bilkent University, specializing in developmental biology, particularly focusing on the early embryonic development of Drosophila melanogaster. In 2024, he graduated with a BSc. degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Boğaziçi University, where he conducted research under the supervision of Prof. Arzu Çelik, in intellectual disease modeling using orthologous genes in D. melanogaster. His current research focuses on understanding how repressors regulate the expression of Bicoid-target-genes by observing spatial and temporal expression patterns and discovering the morphological consequences of ectopically introduced repressor binding motifs on cis-regulatory-elements.
Undergraduate Students
- Pelin Taşdemir
- Semiramis Yasemin Yılmaz
- Demir Erensoy
- Elif Beste Tezcan