2019
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Visiting PhD student
Harvard- MIT Health Sciences Technology
2016 – 2020
The University of Sheffield
PhD
Department of Materials Science and Engineering,
Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering
2013 – 2016
Izmir Katip Celebi University
MSc
Graduate School of Natural and Applied Science,
Department of Biomedical Technologies
2009 – 2013
Ege University
BSc
Engineering Faculty, Department of Bioengineering
In 2013, I completed my BSc degree in Bioengineering at Ege University, Izmir, Turkey. Following my BSc, I was successful in applying a Turkish Research Council (TUBITAK) supported MSc project on developing and prototyping of a novel uterus manipulator to be used in laparoscopic hysterectomy operations. After obtaining my MSc degree in Turkey, I joined Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Group at the University of Sheffield to do my PhD in Prof Sheila MacNeil’s and Dr Frederik Claeyssens' groups in 2016.
I completed my PhD degree at Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Sheffield in 2020. My PhD research is focused on developing synthetic and natural tissue-engineered constructs to study the aspect of angiogenesis and exploring novel pro-angiogenic agents as alternatives to expensive and well-established drugs. My research interests include biomaterial development and characterisation, human cell-tissue culture, in vitro and in vivo angiogenesis models, reconstruction of 3D skin models, in-ovo and ex-ovo chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assays.
Throughout my PhD, I have shared my work in biomaterials and tissue engineering conferences around the world delivering research presentations in the United Kingdom, Greece, Turkey, United States of America (USA) and Japan. I have also developed collaborations with Southampton University in my first and second years, and in the third year of my PhD, I was invited by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to conduct a collaborative research study. In 2019, I joined Mercedes Balcells-Camps's Lab located at Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, MIT, Boston, USA for 6 months to develop a novel in vitro 3D dynamic model that enables the study of angiogenesis under physiologically more relevant conditions.
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Currently, I am working as an assistant professor of Bioengineering at Izmir Institute of Technology (IZTECH) and running my own lab (Dikici Lab) here. My group's research focuses on biomaterials and tissue engineering, pro-angiogenic biomaterials, biomaterials for wound management and skin tissue engineering, in vitro tissue and disease models.
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For more information you can check my academic and social profiles.