Speakers

Buse Cevatemre Yildirim

Place of Birth : Türkiye
Position : Instructor, Koç University, Türkiye
Field of study : Cancer biology and drug resistance mechanisms in solid tumors

Dr. Buse Cevatemre Yıldırım is currently an Instructor at Koç University School of Medicine, where she also completed her postdoctoral research after earning her Ph.D. in Biology from Uludağ University. Her research focuses on identifying genetic and epigenetic mechanisms driving therapy resistance in cancer and uncovering novel targets to overcome this critical challenge. She has led or contributed to 23 research projects, including 8 as principal investigator, supported by national funding.
Her work has earned multiple prestigious honors, including the TÜBA-GEBİP Outstanding Young Scientist Award (Turkish Academy of Sciences, 2024), BAGEP Young Scientist Award (Science Academy, 2024), the Türkân Saylan Science Award (Association for Supporting Contemporary Life, 2024), and the L’Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Award (2022). She also received the Young Basic Cancer Researcher Award from the Turkish Society for Molecular Cancer Research (2014 & 2018). In addition, she earned several international meeting travel awards and was recognized with multiple awards for both oral and poster presentations at conferences.
Dr. Cevatemre Yıldırım has authored 32 peer-reviewed publications, with more than half in Q1 journals, and holds an h-index of 20 (as of July 2025). Beyond research, she is strongly committed to scientific communication and mentoring. She won the People’s Choice Award in the BioRender Global Competition (2020) among 5000+ submissions from leading institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, and Yale, and continues to create content for the platform. She actively mentors students, some of whom have advanced to international Ph.D. programs, and is an engaged member of EACR and AACR.
During her M.Sc. studies (2010–2013) at Uludağ University, she focused on evaluating the efficacy of anti-cancer agents in preclinical models. In 2012, she was assigned by the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) as a Visiting Researcher to the University of York Cancer Research Unit (UK), where she contributed to projects on cancer stem cells in metastatic prostate cancer. During her Ph.D. (2013–2018), she also worked as a Research Assistant in the Biology Department at Uludağ University, investigating EMT-driven drug resistance in lung cancer. Between 2018 and 2024, she served as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Koç University, where she explored novel therapeutic targets and strategies for drug-resistant prostate cancer.