Young Researcher´s award goes to HITS doctoral student

Mehmet Ali Öztürk, PhD student at HITS and at the Hartmut Hoffmann-Berling International Graduate School of Molecular and Cellular Biology (HBIGS) of Heidelberg University, has been awarded the „Preis der Dr. Alexander und Dr. Rosemarie Bauer-Stiftung“ of Heidelberg University.  The 3000 Euro award enables young researchers to have a research stay in Germany or abroad.

Mehmet Ali Öztürk is working as a PhD student in the „Molecular and Cellular Modeling“ (MCM) group led by Rebecca Wade, who is professor at the Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH) of Heidelberg University. He received the award for his research project “Structural analysis of DNA binding mechanisms of FoxA1 – AR heterodimer complex”. The aim of the project is to characterize the structural interactions of certain proteins with DNA and to study how they form a protein complex associated with castration-resistant prostate cancer.

For the project, Öztürk is integrating various computational and experimental biophysical methods. He spent two months from March to May doing experiments in Dr. Xavier Salvatella’s lab at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) in Barcelona, Spain. Öztürk presented the results of his investigations at the “Young Scientists Seminar of the “DKFZ-ZMBH-Alliance” in the DKFZ today, and subsequently received the award in a short ceremony.
The annual „Preis der Dr. Alexander und Dr. Rosemarie Bauer-Stiftung“ (foundation) is endowed with 3000 Euro. The foundation aims at supporting young researchers in the bioscience and the chemistry and earth science faculties. It enables doctoral students and postdocs to have a research stay at an external laboratory in Germany or abroad. The results of the research should be published after the research visit.