Dr. Ezgi Özkurt

Education

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology & Kiel University

2016-2020

PhD in Evolutionary Biology

Advisor: Prof. Eva H. Stukenbrock

Thesis: Domestication-driven metaorganism evolution of wheat

Middle East Technical University, Ankara, TURKEY

2014-2015

MSc in Biology

Advisor: Dr. Mehmet Somel

Thesis: Evolution of bladder cancer investigated using exome sequencing

Middle East Technical University, Ankara, TURKEY

2009-2014

BS in Molecular Biology and Genetics

Thesis: Effect of different methods in water quality assesment

Experience

Quadram Institute Biosciences

November 2019 – present

PostDoc

Advisor: Dr. Falk Hildebrand

Project: Human microbiomes with a focus on vertical transmission & gene networks

For further information: https://www.falk.science

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology

July-September 2015

Erasmus Trainee

Supervisor: Dr. Arne Nolte

Project: Gene expression in Cottus fish in response to water temperature

Middle East Technical University

2013-2015

Researcher

Advisor: Dr. Mehmet Somel

Determining the origin of synchronous multifocal bladder cancer by next-generation sequencing (Published, Master Thesis)
Mechanisms of Testes Expression Divergence in Human and Chimpanzee (Available in BioRxiv)

Umeå University, Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden(MIMS), Umeå, SWEDEN

July– October 2013

Erasmus Trainee

Supervisor: Dr. Ake Forsberg

Project: Gene silencing and Gene Tagging in Yersinia Pseudotuberculosis species to understand the mechanism of Type3 secretion system

Publications

M. Amine Hassani, Ezgi Özkurt, Sören Franzenburg, Eva H. Stukenbrock. Ecological Assembly Processes of the Bacterial and Fungal Microbiota of Wild and Domesticated Wheat Species, 2020, accepted Phytobiomes journal
Ezgi Özkurt, M. Amine Hassani, Uğur Sesiz, Tal Dagan, Hakan Özkan, Eva H. Stukenbrock. Higher Stochasticity of Microbiota Composition in Seedlings of Domesticated Wheat Compared to Wild Wheat, 2019, available in bioRxiv: doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/685164, will be submitted to mBio
M. Amine Hassani, Ezgi Özkurt, Heike Seybold, Eva H. Stukenbrock. Interactions and Coadaptation in Plant Metaorganisms, 2019, Annual Review of Phytopathology
Ezgi Özkurt*, Omer Açar*, Gulfem Demir, Hilal Saraç, Can Alkan, Tarık Esen, Mehmet Somel*, Nathan A. Lack*.Determining the Origin of Synchronous Multifocal Bladder Cancer by Next-Generation Sequencing, 2015, BMC Cancer, doi: 10.1186/s12885-015-1859-8 *Equal contributions
Ekin Saglican, Ezgi Özkurt, Haiyang Hu, Babur Erdem, Philipp Khaitovich, Mehmet Somel. Heterochrony Explains Convergent Testis Evolution in Primates. Accessible on http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2014/10/21/010553

Conferences

ESEB2019, August 19-24, Turku, Finland, Oral Presentation: Higher stochasticity of microbiota composition in seedlings of domesticated wheat compared to wild wheat
SMBE2019, July 21-25, Machester, UK, Poster Presentation: Higher stochasticity of microbiota composition in seedlings of domesticated wheat compared to wild wheat
EEBST2018, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Symposium, July 18-20, Izmir, Turkey, Oral Presentation: Domestication-driven Metaorganism Evolution of Wheat
EMBO Plant Microbiota Workshop, 26 March – 7 April 2017, Cologne, Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding
Wild Plant Pathosystems, August 29-31, 2016, Helsinki, Poster Presentation: Genome Evolution of the Fungal Grass Pathogen Zymoseptoria pseudotritici
17th Next Generation Plant Biotechnology Symposium, Rehovot, Israel, April 11-13, 2016
Quantitative Evolutionary Biology Workshop 2014, Şirince Ali Nesin Mathematic Village, Poster Presentation: Exome Sequencing on Evolutionary Relationship of Multifocal Bladder Tumours

References

Dr. Eva H. Stukenbrock, Kiel University & Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Germany Email: stukenbrock@evolbio.mpg.de Phone: +49 431880 6368 (Kiel) & + 49 4522 763-236 (MPI)

Dr. Mehmet Somel, Middle East Technical University, Turkey Email: msomel@metu.edu.tr Phone: + 90 312 210 6460