Turkey 2006

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Revision as of 05:18, 11 May 2006

Welcome, [http://www.ege.edu.tr EGE UNIVERSITY in Turkey]

GENERAL INFORMATION

Ege University is a state university that acts as a focal point for education, research, cultural and social activities in the city of Izmir and the Aegean region. The University is one of Turkey 's leading campus universities, with a major commitment to education, research, cultural and social activities. The University aims to give its students the opportunity to acquire specialized knowledge and training in a wide range of related areas and they are encouraged to develop their powers of observation, creativity and flexible thinking.

Ege University adopts the fundamental ideal of achieving excellence and highest quality in undergraduate and graduate education, in research and in public service by encouraging critical intellectual development, combining research and teaching, redefining educational goals of this millennium and by utilizing physical and human resources to provide a better learning environment and guided education.

Ege University is the University of Choice for intelligent, motivated students who are willing to learn and accept responsibility and wish to receive high quality education in an atmosphere where ideas are freely exchanged.

Being a university with an international perspective, the educational system of Ege University is based on the principle of creative teaching and participatory learning. The University embraces many diverse fields and disciplines of study; therefore the academic calendar and the duration of studies vary.

The educational process is enriched by a number of other activities, parallel to the core studies, such as seminars, lectures by invited scholars, educational visits, as well as summer schools and conferences that are organized by the University's Departments. The curricula of all the institutions of the university contain required courses and a wide choice of electives offered both within and outside their area of specialization, some taught in English.

WHAT IS BIOENGINEERING?

Bioengineering is a discipline that applies engineering principles to biological systems for the purpose of developing new technologies of services to improve the living standards of societies. It exploits the new developments in molecular biology, biochemistry, microbiology, cell metabolism and engineering principles and applies them in order to understand living systems and to bring solutions to various problems associated with these systems.

Biotechnology is a popular term for the generic technology of the 21st century. Although it has been utilized for centuries in traditional production processes, modern biotechnology is only 50 years old and in the last decades it has been witnessing tremendous developments. Bioengineering is the science upon which all Biotechnological applications are based.

Bioengineering employs the knowledge and expertise in a number of pure and applied sciences such as; mass and heat transfer, kinetics, biocatalysts, biomechanics, separation, and purification processes, bioreactor design, surface science, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and polymer science which constitute the fundamentals of engineering and couples it with knowledge in biological sciences such as genetics, molecular biology, protein chemistry, cytology, neurobiology, immunology and pharmacology, aiming to solve the different problems of the various sectors of the modern societies. With the development of new approaches and modern techniques, traditional biotechnology industries are also acquiring new horizons enabling them to improve the quality of their products and increase the productivity of their systems.

The main fields of Bioengineering can be classified as follows:
• Bioprocess Engineering; Bioprocess Design, Biocatalysts, Bioseparation.
• Genetic Engineering; Cell Engineering, Tissue Culture Engineering.
• Biomedical Engineering; Biomedical Diagnosis, Biomedical Therapy, Biomechanics, Biomaterials.
• Molecular Engineering; Protein Engineering, Design of Active Compounds
• Biotechnology; Industrial Biotechnology, Plant and Animal Biotechnology, Environmental Biotechnology.

BIOENGINEERING DEPARTMENT AT EGE UNIVERSITY

Research and education on Biotechnology at Ege University was started in 1979 with the establishment of the Department of Biochemistry & Biochemical Engineering. The next foundation was Biotechnology Center for Research and Applications which was established in 1989. This Center started accepting students to its multidisciplinary Biotechnology Graduate Program in 1991.

Ege University Department of Bioengineering was founded in 2000 as the first Bioengineering Department in Turkey. Since then, it has expanded rapidly with has reached 25 full-time staffs by 2006.

Each year 30 new students are accepted to the four year undergraduate programme. Presently there are 161 undergraduate, 22 Masters and 13 Ph.D. students continuing their education.

The first bioengineers of Turkey have graduated from the department in academic year of 2003/2004. At the present there are total of 27 graduates. Master and PhD programmes of Department of Bioengineering have been launched in the academic years of 2001/2002 and 2004/2005 respectively. The Department of Bioengineering provides strong fundamental knowledge on Bioengineering and related disciplines through most recent technological applications at the labs via hands-on approach.

In the year 2004 Department of Bioengineering a very prestigious grant from the EU FP6 program in the field of “Integrating and Strengthening the European Research Area”. With a very high score of 24 out of 25, in project proposal of the department was selected as a 2 budding’ Center of Excellence in Bioengineering and Biotechnology. It has been granted a total support of 650 000 € from the FP6 program. The project was named “BIOACE” after “Aegean Centre of Excellence for Bioengineering and Biotechnology” reflecting the departments status in TURKEY. BIO-ACE will be the first Centre of Excellence in Turkey in the area of Bioengineering and Biotechnology renowned for its unique quality in RTD and post-graduate training as well as wide-spread contacts and collaborations at national and European levels. The strategic objectives of BIO-ACE will be to:

1 - Contribute to Research and Technology Development capacity building in Turkey by improving the quality and quantity of education in the area of Bioengineering and Biotechnology and catalysing the initiation of innovative companies in this area through increased scientific research and know-how development,

2 - Increase its scope of activities as well as its regional coverage and become more active, nationally and internationally through the synergies established with the EU institutions, Participating Units and industry, especially in the area of health care,

3 - Increase its networking capabilities with other Biotechnology/Bioengineering Centres in EU and AC countries through mobilising human and material resources, disseminating scientific information as well as the results of research, facilitating communication between centres having similar scientific interests,

4 - Enhance the participation of Turkey in the 6th Framework Programme through joint projects developed with cooperating units and European institutions,

5 -Increase job opportunities in Turkey for young scientists through better career opportunities, better work conditions as a result of improved science and technology infrastructure and encouragement of the establishment of new industries in the area of Biotechnology. Aware of its unique potential in its area Departmant of Bioengineering was sharing knowledge and ideas with the industry, entrepreneurs, other departments and universtities. Presently 55 projects have been completed and 55 are continuing amounting to 6.5 projects per academic staff. Funds over 5 million Euros have been obtained from different sources for these projects:

Project

Advisors

Dr Raul Cuero,(PhD)

Dr. Raul Cuero, (PhD, Microbiologist, Distinguished Professor.Research Leader, Scientist and Contact Person for Prairie View A&M University iGEM 2006 group. Dr Cuero holds 8 scientific inventions and more than 90 scientific publications.Dr Cuero is currently working on fungal toxins at the molecular level, and on biogenesis. He is also the author of the book "Triumph and Survival".

Instructors

Dr Bahattin TANYOLAC, Phd.

Bahattin TANYOLAC