Urartu Ozgur Safak Seker received his Ph.D. in molecular biology and genetics from Istanbul Technical University in 2009. He carried out his experimental studies at the University of Washington, Seattle between 2004-2008 in the Materials Science and Engineering Department. In March 2010 he became a postdoctoral research fellow in the Applied Physics Department at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and moved to MIT as a postdoctoral researcher, where he was affiliated with the Synthetic Biology Research Center, RLE and Biological Engineering. Since May 2014 he has been a professor at Bilkent University Institute of Materials Science and Nanotechnology Life Sciences Section. His research covers synthetic biology and its biomedical applications. He is a recipient of Distinguished Young Scientist awards from Turkish Academy of Sciences, Turkish Institute of Health, Science Academy, METU Parlar Foundation, and FABED.