Our students, alumni, employees and friends of SU took part in the 38thIstanbul Marathon on Sunday, November 13 for the benefit of the Sabancı University Scholarship Fund.

Thanks to their supporting families and friends, they have generated enough fund for the monthly stipend of 2 of our successful students who are in financial need.

We would like to thank all supporters, financial or otherwise, for making a difference and creating awareness.

Our donation campaign still continues, so that we can assist even more students in financial aid.

Click here to donate online.
 
For wire transfers:
Akbank, Sabancı Üniversitesi Branch
Branch Number: 713
Account Number: 30727
IBAN: TR870004600713888000030727   

SU  Istanbul Marathon entrants:

Supporters of Istanbul Marathon entrants for the benefit of the SU Scholarship Fund:

The worldwide "Art Conservation Project" implemented by Bank of America Merrill Lynch extends to the conservation of six paintings by Osman Hamdi Bey in the Sakıp Sabancı Museum Collection.

The scientific advisor of the project is Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum Painting and Contemporary Art Conservation Specialist and Danish Academy of Fine Arts member Filiz Kuvvetli. The scientific committee of the project consists of Filiz Kuvvetli in addition to Getty Conservation Institute Chemistry Expert Lynn Lee, Sabancı University Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences Materials Science and Engineering Professor Mehmet Ali Gülgün, and Sabancı University Nanotechnology Research and Application Center members Dr. Meltem Sezen and Dr. Feray Bakan.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch tarafından dünya çapında hayata geçirilen “Sanatı Koruma Projesi” kapsamında, Türkiye’den, Sabancı Üniversitesi Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi koleksiyonunda yer alan Osman Hamdi Bey tablolarının konservasyon ve araştırma çalışmalarının yürütüldüğü bir proje gerçekleştiriliyor. Proje kapsamında Türk sanat tarihinin önemli sanatçılarından Osman Hamdi Bey’in altı tablosu, kullanılan teknik ve malzeme bakımından titizlikle inceleniyor. S.Ü. Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi’nin koleksiyonunda yer alan ve proje kapsamında incelenen diğer Osman Hamdi Bey tabloları ise “Kuran Okuyan Adam”, “Camii”, “Kokana Despina”, “Naile Hanım’ın Portresi” ve “Beyaz Vazoda Çiçekler”. Araştırma sonrasında eserler 2017’nin ilk yarısında açılması beklenen Osman Hamdi Bey sergisi ile sanatseverlerle buluşacak.

Osman Hamdi Bey'in en değerli eseri 'Kaplumbağa Terbiyecisi' adlı tuval üstü yağlı boya tablosunun biri Pera Müzesi'nde, diğer ise Belma Simavi koleksiyonunda yer alıyor. 

X-RAY TEKNOLOJİSİYLE İNCELENECEK

Konservatörlerin resimler üzerindeki onarım çalışmalarını yapmaya başlamadan önceki araştırma sürecinde, sanatçı tarafından kullanılmış malzeme ve tekniklerin incelenmesi, eser üzerinde daha önce yapılan onarımlar ve yüzeyde görülemeyen hasarlar hakkında bilgi sağlıyor. Konservatörler tarafından sıklıkla kullanılan X-Radyoloji tekniğiyle, X-Ray ışınının farklı yoğunluklardaki materyallerin içinden geçerek çıplak gözün tespit edemediği bilgiler ortaya çıkarılıyor. Resimde kullanılan materyallerin çoğu, atomik yapısına göre değişiklik göstermek üzere, X-Ray ışığında geçirgen olma özelliği taşıyor. Böylece bu işlemle, resmin ilk aşamasından itibaren geçirdiği aşamalar izlenebiliyor. Hem sanatçının tuval üzerinde yaptığı değişiklikler hem de resim üzerinde sonradan yapılan onarımlar görülebiliyor.

'Arzuhalci'

ARZUHALCİ KURŞUN BARINDIRAN PİGMENTLE YAPILMIŞ

Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’ndan Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’ne uzanan bir zaman aralığında kültür ve sanat hayatına yaptığı eşsiz katkılarıyla bilinen Osman Hamdi Bey imzalı “Arzuhalci” eserinin X-Ray taramasında sanatçının tuval üzerinde kullandığı teknik, fırça hareketleri ve kademeli olarak eserde yaptığı değişiklikler açıkça görülüyor. Resimde daha açık renkte görünen kısımlar, sanatçının içinde kurşun barındıran pigment kullandığı bölgeleri ifade ediyor.

'Kur'an Okuyan Adam'

"TOPLUMSAL ZENGİNLİĞE KATKI"

Merrill Lynch Yatırım Bank A.Ş. Board of Directors Chair Banu Başar said the following about the project: "Our worldwide Art Conservation Project seeks to conserve works of art on one hand, while contributing to the cultural riches and education of societies on the other. We intend to create an environment of harmony and mutual respect among different cultures and traditions. We are proud to have partnered with Sabancı Museum for the conservation of the Osman Hamdi Bey collection. We believe that our efforts will help future generations in their education and interest in art."

"Fountain of Life"

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Art Conservation Project makes donations to nonprofit museums worldwide to help with the protection of works of art that have historical or cultural significance and are under threat of deterioration. Since the program was implemented in 2010, the company provided funding to over 100 conservation projects in museums in 29 countries.

Among these are two copies of the Magna Carta in the Society of Antiquaries in London; Gustave Courbet’s magnificent “L’Atelier du peintre” in the Paris Orsay Museum; Pablo Picasso’s "Woman Ironing" in the New York Guggenheim Museum; an octoptych by Kan Eitoku in the Tokyo National Museum that is dated to the 16th century and recognized as a national heritage by the Japanese government, and a collection of paintings by Gerard Sekoto in the Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg.

URARTU JEWELS ALSO UNDER CONSERVATION

In addition to paintings by Osman Hamdi Bey, the program has arranged for the conservation of other works in Turkey. The Urartu Jewels Collection, dated to the 7th to 9th centuries BC and on display in the Istanbul Rezan Has Museum, were conserved as part of the project. The project also extends to the restoration of an 8th-century Umayyad Quran in the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art in Istanbul.

Source: NTV

Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences member İsmail Çakmak received The World Academy for Sciences  2016 Prize in Agricultural Sciences for his successful multinational projects in 12 countries and outstanding contribution to scientific literature in his field. 

İsmail Çakmak was nominated for the 2016 Prize in Agricultural Sciences by the Turkish Academy of Sciences.

The World Academy of Sciences awarded the 2016 Prize in Agricultural Sciences to İsmail Çakmak for successful international projects in 12 countries to employ agricultural strategies to reduce diseases related to zinc, iron and iodine deficiency in over 2 billion people in the developing world, and his outstanding contributions to scientific literature in his field. İsmail Çakmak will receive his Academy Medal and a cash prize of USD 15.000 at a ceremony in 2017.

Deficiency of the said micronutrients cause issues in brain development in children, immune system problems, and reduced physical development. The root cause of the problem is the excessive consumption of grain-based foods, which are naturally very low in zinc, iron and iodine. The project directed by Dr. Çakmak focuses on wheat, rice and corn in China, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Laos, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mexico and Turkey, aiming to fortify grains by increasing zinc, iron and iodine concentration (particularly by developing and using new fertilizer formulas), thereby contributing to human health. Owing to the success of the project implemented by İsmail Çakmak, the program was extended for three-year intervals twice, and expanded to include new countries and micronutrients.

The project has an approximate budget of 5 million US dollars funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Bank and some food or fertilizer industry companies, and has resulted in a large number of scientific publications.  

About İsmail Çakmak

Dr. Çakmak has published 160 articles in international reviewed scientific journals, receiving more than 9000 citations according to Web of Science data, and approximately 17,000 citations according to Google Scholar data (H-Index; Google Scholar: 69 and Web of Science: 52).

He received the 1999 TÜBİTAK Science Award, the 2005 International Plant Nutrition Award given by the International Fertilizer Industry Association, the 2007 Australian Academy of Technological Sciences “Derek Tribe Prize”, and the 2014 Georg Forster Research Prize given by thge Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany). Çakmak has given scientific lectures in over 45 countries to date. He raised more than 15 million US dollars in funds for his national and international projects. Çakmak was elected to the Academia Europaea in 2012. Çakmak is also an elected member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences.

Interview: Şule Yalçın / Alumni Relations and Career Development Manager

Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences Mechatronic Engineering undergraduate (2004), master's (2006) and PhD (2012) graduate Emrah Deniz Kunt spoke about his venture Indoora, which provides high-precision location technologies and services indoors, where GPS technology does not work.

Would you like to tell us more about your startup Indoora?

Indoora is a startup with co-founders all from Sabanci University alumni. Görkem Erinç (FENS ‘04), Ahmet Teoman Naskali (FENS’06, FENS’12) and Oktar Özgen (FENS’ 6) are the other co-founders of Indoora. We started working together in 2014 when Görkem and Oktar returned to Turkey from U.S. We provide high precision positioning technology and services for indoor spaces where GPS technology does not work.  You can consider our technology as another version of Google Maps which works indoors.  We developed a technology for smart phones which offers accuracy of less than 2 meters.  In terms of sensitivity and consistency, our technology is highly competitive when compared to the other companies around the world.  After an intensive period of R&D supported by Tubitak for the last 2 years, we started to offer our products and services to the market. Last year we were chosen as the “Best Incubation Company of the Year” by Teknopark Istanbul. Our first customer is Teknopark Istanbul as well.  Teknopark Istanbul mobile app is live right now and we’re starting to offer our technology and services through the mobile application in the following months.  At the beginning of this year, we signed a 3-year contract with Tuyap, the largest exhibition center in Turkey. As of October, we released MyTuyap mobile app which we developed for Tuyap and started to offer our technology and services through this app in all the trade fairs that take place in Tuyap Exhibition and Convention Center. Additionally, we are conducting negotiations with different companies like THY, Porsche, Volkswagen, Messe Berlin on different application ranges of our technology.  Airports, shopping malls, hospitals, universities, museums, hotels, office buildings and other large-scale venues are among the most ideal venues for us where we can offer our services in the most effective way.

How did this team come together?

We have been friends with Görkem since 1999 when we started our bachelor degree in Sabancı University as the first students of the university. He was in U.S. completing his PhD degree when we first started considering this idea.  And I somehow convinced him to return back to Turkey to establish Indoora.  We had our MSc and PhD degrees together with Teoman in Sabanci University.  Beforehand, we had even established a company together.  Oktar and Görkem completed their PhD degrees together in U.S. As a group of people who have long known each other, we were able to emerge as a strong team and I believe we were lucky in that since we all had faith in this idea.

Would you elaborate on your technology? For example, how can we make use of it?

Let me illustrate it with an example. When you are in a shopping mall, you are most likely to ask questions like “Which shop is on which floor?” or “How can I get from A to B?”.  When you use an application that runs on our technology, you can see your instant location on our map interface, just as Google Maps does outdoors by using GPS technology.  And when you choose your destination, we provide turn-by-turn navigation.  This is very similar to Google Maps, but a version that works indoors and with much better accuracy.  In addition, suppose that you are in a shop and trying to decide which pair of shoes to buy.  By realizing you’ve been spending quite some time in there, we can offer you a discount deal to shorten the amount of time you spend buying stuff.  Or, let’s say, when you pass by a store in a mall, that store wants you to be informed of their discounts.  When you get into that predefined area, we can show you various advertisements or any kind of information if you have opted to be informed. Such examples can be diversified for different venues. For example, you can offer those Audio Guide systems in museums through an application that runs on our technology.  When you’re next to an art piece, you can instantly read the information about the item on your screen or listen to it. And since we can track the movements of people in a specific venue, we can provide store or venue owners significant analytics.  It is possible to gather quite valuable data such as time and location based customer traffic density, motion profiles of visitors or most active regions in a venue.  You can even do customer segmentation through the use of social login feature in the app which makes these data more valuable. Then, you have the chance to analyze the behavior pattern of people between the ages of 20-30 in a venue, for example.  It is possible to elaborate on that.

In recent months, we learnt that you got selected to participate in Startupbootcamp Berlin. Would you tell us more about this?

Startupbootcamp is one of the leading accelerator programs in the Startup ecosystem.  They have various programs in different countries and different cities targeting different verticals.  The objective of such programs is to find related startups, choose 10 out of them, enable them to collaborate with program sponsoring companies, provide them with an intense training schedule for 3 months where they get to meet with expert mentors and, within this period, let the leading investors be informed of those startups. These are also important organizations that enable you to expand into your targeted countries rapidly. We applied to become a part of Startupbootcamp Berlin (Smart Transportation and Energy) and Startupbootcamp London (IoT- Connected Devices) in order to expand into Europe.  We were among the final 20 in both, out of 288 startups in Berlin and out of 400 startups in London. After a tough decision process, we decided on Berlin and participated in a finale in Berlin in the early July.  In the finale, we were selected among the 10 startups to attend the program. The decision was made by different program sponsors such as Airbus, Cisco, HERE, Kuehne+Nagel, Mercedes-Benz and VINCI. We came to Berlin at the end of August to participate in a 3-month program and we’ve been working within quite an intense schedule.

November 10th Ataturk Remembrance Day will be held on Thursday at Performing Arts Center.

November 10th Ataturk Remembrance Day Program:

8:45 Commencement

8:45-9.05 Slide Show

9.05 Moment of Silence & National Anthem

9:10  Remembrance Speech by Prof. Dr. Ersin Kalaycıoğlu: ''Republic and Science: Transition from Dynasty to Popular Rule''

Due to the ceremony, there will be no class between 08:40 and 10:30.

The second Hexagon Studio Executive Development Program held by Sabancı University Executive Development Unit EDU in association with Hexagon Studio concluded with a certificate ceremony held on Monday, October 24, 2016 at the Sabancı University campus in Tuzla.

Attending the ceremony were Hexagon Studio General Manager Tolga Doğancıoğlu and a number of executives.

14 project and team leaders from various functions took the training course between January and October 2016. The objective of the Executive Development Program was to develop a common language, and monthly modules focused on Strategy, Marketing, Leadership, Human Resources and Finance to.support the development of Hexagon Studio.

The partnership between Hexagon Studio and Sabancı University Executive Development Unit EDU extends beyond two years including the design phase of the program. The partnership continues to evolve and improve.

2015/16 Mercator-IPC Fellow Defne Kadıoğlu Polat's report titled" "There is nothing quite like Tophane" A Case Study of Gentrification in Istanbul" was published. 

Based on a field study in Istanbul’s Tophane neighborhood, this report examines the effects of gentrification on long-term residents. It raises questions such as what Tophane means to its residents, how the social fabric of the neighborhood is affected by the gentrification process, what forms of social exclusion and conflict emerge as new middle- and upper-class residents as well as tourists come to Tophane, and what the relation of residents is with the local and national government. 

Please click here for the report.

Raporun linki: http://ipc.sabanciuniv.edu/en/publication/there-is-nothing-quite-like-to...

Researchers in the Sabancı University Gözüaçık Lab discovered how and why a genetic and deadly disorder (Inclusion body myopathy with early-onset Paget disease and frontotemporal dementia, IBMPFD) occurs. The treatment recommended by the team is based on autophagy, which was the subject of this year's Nobel Prize in medicine. 

Working under the supervision of Sabancı University Faculty Member Devrim Gözüaçık, Molecular Biology, Genetics and Bioengineering PhD candidate Öznur Bayraktardiscovered the mechanism responsible for the onset of IBMPFD (Inclusion body myopathy with early-onset Paget disease and frontotemporal dementia), a genetic and fatal disease that begins with muscle and bone weakness, and may lead to permanent disability and dementia. As a possible treatment for certain varieties of this disease, the team recommended a method based on autophagy, which was the subject of this year's Nobel Prize in medicine. 

IBMPFD, Inclusion body myopathy with early-onset Paget disease and frontotemporal dementia

In addition to IBMPFD, this discovery may lead to a better understanding of disorders including ALS, Parkinson's, Huntingtion's, Lewy Body Dementia and Machado-Joseph Disease, possibly enabling personalized diagnosis and effective treatment. The study is in the pre-clinical phase, and extensive clinical trials will be required before treatments are administered to patients.

The research team led by Dr. Devrim Gözüaçık is composed of Öznur Bayraktar, Özlem Oral, Nur Kocatürk, Yunus Akkoç, Karin Eberhart and Ali Koşar. An article providing the details of the study was published by the team in the October 2016 issue of the international scientific journal PLOS ONE. 

About Autophagy, the subject of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine

Autophagy is a new and emerging field in medicine, genetics and molecular cell biology. It has been expanding over the last decade, covering the most important fundamental and clinical research fields. Autophagy is a recycling mechanism for the body, whereby it purges itself of damaged or diseased proteins or mitochondria in cells. This mechanism allows the body to prevent cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and diabetes while fighting against microorganisms and reinforcing the immune system. Owing to the understanding of the significance of autophagy for human health and in consideration for the extensive body of research on drugs based on autophagy, the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine will be awarded to Japanese professor Yoshinori Ohsumi for initiating the seminal research on this subject.  Oshumi's prize will be presented in Sweden on December 10. Dr. Gözüaçık's lab is the first and only lab in Turkey that is dedicated to autophagy studies. 

PLOS ONE article link: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0164864

About the Gözüaçık Scientific Research Lab:  http://myweb.sabanciuniv.edu/dgozuacik/

EFSUN - Sabancı University Center of Excellence for Functional Surfaces and Interface: http://efsun.sabanciuniv.edu

“Sustainability and Alternative Energy: Lowering Our Footprint on Our Planet”

02 November Wednesday at 12.40, FENS L062

Over the recent decade, the effects of global warming have made a clear case for revisiting how modern life must be better adapted so that future generations can enjoy similar levels of lifestyle on our planet. To minimize carbon consumption, one strategy has been to develop sources of alternative energy, of which there are many competing technologies. However, one topic receiving less attention to‐date is that of sustainability—how can we live in a manner that lowers our impact on the environment, one that enables our planet to continue sustaining life decades from now?

There are no simple solutions to lowering our carbon footprint—for every solution proposed, new challenges arise. In this talk, I would like to frame the multi‐faceted analysis for identifying viable solutions to the challenges we are facing, and my goal is to foster the on‐going debate on resolving the interconnected problems of climate, energy, and sustainability.