Turkish biochemist Aziz Sancar became Turkey's pride in 2015 when he received the coveted Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden for his work on how cells repair damaged DNA.
Turkish professor Aziz Sanjar, a biochemist, has contributed to the study of the mechanisms of DNA repair and shown how certain protein molecules can correct DNA errors caused by exposure to ultraviolet light or chemicals that induce mutations.
In 2015, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with two other scientists in Sweden, Tomas Lindahl and Paul Modrich. Sanjar lived in the United States, taught and continued his research in biochemistry, and moved there in the early 1970s to pursue a Doctorate. He has also contributed to the development of science and education in Turkey and has served as a goodwill ambassador for Turkish culture.
Early life
Aziz Sanjar was born on September 8, 1946 in the Savur district of the southeastern province of Mardin. He was the seventh of eight children in a lower-middle-class family, and his parents, like most families in Savour, were agricultural workers. His parents were illiterate, but they valued education and did their best to ensure that all their children received the best education possible.
All of Sanjar's siblings are college graduates. His two older brothers, Kennan and Tahir, are retired officers in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), while the youngest of his siblings is a mechanical engineer. Mithat Sancar, one of his cousins, is a parliamentarian.
As for his ethnic origins, Sanjar refused any consideration other than that he was a Turk. He replied to the media: "I don't speak Arabic, nor do I speak Kurdish. They were insulting me by asking questions like this. I'm Turk, that's all. ”
Sanjar was a hard-working student at school, but he also enjoyed playing football. He worked as a goalkeeper on the varsity team, which earned him an invitation to participate in the U-18 national football team selection tournament in his final year of high school. He said in an interview: "It's a dream come true because from the age of seven, I wanted to play for the national team. However, after careful consideration, I felt that I was not tall enough to be a good goalkeeper, so I concentrated on my studies. ”
Sanjar was very good at all the scientific subjects of high school, but after graduation he narrowed his choices to chemistry and medicine. In 1963, he earned enough points to enter the Istanbul University School of Medicine.
In his second year of medical school, Sanjar decided to become a research biochemist after taking a course in biochemistry. However, when he shared his decision with the professor in his class, the professor persuaded Sanjar to practice as a physician for at least a few years. Following the advice of his biochemistry professor, Sanjar worked as a rural doctor in his hometown of Savoor for a year and a half after graduation.
Become a professor
Sanjar decided to move to the United States because, according to his own recollection, "the action was there," which meant he wanted to be involved in biochemical research in the country. In 1973, he finally came to the United States and joined claud S. Rupert's lab at the University of Texas in Dallas. After four years of study, he earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology, and after three applications for postdoctoral research from leading DNA repair laboratories were rejected, he accepted the position of research assistant at Yale University.
According to Sanjar, he did not receive offers from these labs because he had not yet published an article. He was so preoccupied with experiments that he didn't have time to write papers. In 1982, Sanjar joined the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and was later named Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Sala Graham Kenan.
Sanjar married Gwen Boles Sancar, whom he met in Dallas during his Doctoral studies, in 1978. She was also studying molecular biology at the time and is now a professor of biochemistry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
After conducting early experiments, Sanjar returned to Turkey in 1976 to complete his four-month compulsory military service. As mentioned earlier, he completed his doctoral studies in 1977. During his graduate studies, as part of Professor Rupert's team, he became obsessed with the nature of the chromophores of photosyphenases, which were responsible for their coloration. He told his friends that he was willing to do whatever it took to identify chromophores, in other words, how bacteria recovered from deadly ultraviolet radiation. So he did his own experimental research, where he used newly developed DNA techniques to overproduce photolysis enzymes and identify chromophores.
Beginning in the early 1980s, Sanjar continued to test for E. coli (also known as E. coli). photolysis enzyme in coli). After that, he began exploring DNA damage checkpoints, where he discovered two photo-catching chromophores in photolysis enzymes, which he proposed were key components of the photolysis reaction mechanism and its activity at the blue end of the visible light spectrum. In early 2000, Sanjar finally observed the mechanism by which photolyticases repair DNA. He also studied human photolase homologs and found that cryptopigments located in the eye function as photosensitive elements of mammalian circadian clocks.
Nobel laureate
Sanjar has continued to work on DNA repair enzymes since the mid-1970s, which earned him memberships from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2004), the National Academy of Sciences (2005), and the Turkish Academy of Sciences (2005), as well as the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2015). The Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Sanjar with Tomas Lindahl and Paul L. From Sweden. Modrich) Award for Mechanical Research in DNA Repair.
In his Nobel speech, Sanjar referred to the educational reforms carried out in Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, which he saw as the basis for his scientific research. He also transferred the Nobel Medal awarded to him to the Ataturk Mausoleum in the capital Ankara, the Atturk Andurk Memorial (Anıtkabir) and the Museum of The Revolutionary War.