Welcome to Human Gene and Cell Therapy Center of Akdeniz University
Akdeniz University, an institution which is dedicated to bringing illumination and enlightenment to society, was founded in 1982. It has since become one of the nation's leading education institutions due to its rapid yet stable progress.
The university, with 29 years of development behind it, now provides a modern standard of education in 15 faculties, 6 schools and 13 vocational schools. In addition to its bachelor degree programmes, Akdeniz University has 5 graduate schools which provide post-graduate and doctorate programs, as well as providing a home for the Antalya State Conservatory.
Akdeniz University is a campus university established on 3,700 acres of land to the west of the city centre. With more than 240 different educational and scientific programmes, the university provides education for more than 30,000 students.
Her involvement in the Erasmus program in 2003 has transformed the university into an international institution attracting many foreign students at the same time sending that many domestic students abroad. Due to its successful implementation of Erasmus program the university was chosen the best in the country not only once but twice.
Akdeniz University Hospitals and Clinics
Akdeniz University Hospital, which is home to leading research centers in the country in the fields of organ, bone marrow transplantation and gene therapy admits patients from all over the world providing the most advanced medical care currently available for her patients.Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is successfully conducted at Akdeniz University Hospitals and Clinics not only for patients with cancer such as multiple myeloma or leukemia but also for those with genetic diseases 
like thalassemia or atherosclerosis as publicized very recently on national news.
Akdeniz University Hospital known to be a leading Hospital in the country is constantly growing in size and the quality of medical services rendered has recently been improved drastically. She is considered to be the center for excellence in research providing training for medical students. The hospital not only accepts patients from Mediterranean region as expected but also patients from all over the world due to its strategic location, being in Antalya, a well-known touristic city in the world.
Center for Gene and Cell Therapy
Human Gene and Cell Therapy Center of Akdeniz University Hospitals and Clinics was initially established as Human Gene Therapy Unit of College of Medicine by Prof. Dr. Salih Sanlioglu in 2003. In 2010, the unit was restructured as a center to include cell therapy studies as well. Gene and Cell Therapy Center is currently located on the first floor in Block B (AKA Institute for Transplantation) of Akdeniz University Hospitals and Clinics shown on the right. The building was originally constructed by japonese engineers a while back (Click on the picture to see how Block B looks in fall of 2011).
Since clinical grade vector production requires cGMP laboratories, the Center is planned to relocate to newly innovated R&D building (shown below) located just behind the main hospital. Studies conducted in the center must comply to biosafety II regulations imposed by NIH. A biosafety level is the level of the biocontainment precautions required to isolate dangerous biological agents in an enclosed facility. The levels of containment range from the lowest biosafety level 1 to the highest at level 4. Due to the quality of research and scientific accomplishments the center stands as a pioneering research facility in the field of gene and cell therapy in the country.
A scientific executive committee composed of both preclinical and clinical scientists manages the center. The committee is currently headed by Asc. Prof. Dr. Ahter D. Sanlioglu who has substantially contributed both to the setting up and running of the gene therapy research in the center starting with her PhD thesis during early 2000.
The use of adenoviral vectors for the treatment of prostate cancer was first gene therapy related research activity conducted in the center. The fact that not all prostate cancer cells were sensitive to the adenoviral delivery of apoptosis inducing gene perplexed the scientists in the center to develop novel complementary gene delivery methods involving the use of a novel siRNA strategy. This lead to a down-regulation of a specific decoy receptor expression on cell surface then the prostate cancer cells became sensitive to apoptosis inducing effects of death ligand.
These studies were conducted in close collaboration with our colleagues from the University of Iowa Gene Therapy Center in which the first gene therapy clinical trial against the prostate cancer patients was conducted by our collaborator Dr. Thomas S. Griffith.
Later studies included development of novel gene therapy methods for other cancer types as well such as lung cancer cells and breast cancer cells etc. Along with novel molecular diagnostics methods were developed to determine disease prognosis. Recently though, scientists in the center are involved in the development of experimental gene therapy modalities not only against cancer but also against auto immune disorders such as diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis etc. Research results are published in the leading gene therapy journals like Human Gene Therapy, Cancer Gene Therapy, and Current Gene Therapy etc. Some gene therapy studies especially those of diabetes require the use of islet cells. For that reason most current studies indulge in combined use of gene and cell therapy to fight against multigenic human diseases. Some of the forthcoming research projects from the center are outline below:
Gene and Cell Therapy Targeting Type 1 Diabetes
Asc. Prof. Dr. Ahter Sanlioglu and her team have long been investigating TRAIL's protective role in disease progression.
Her studies mainly concern the testing of the therapeutic potential of TRAIL for various human genetic diseases including cancer with a recent focus on Type 1 diabetes.
In addition, syngeneic, allogenic and xenogenic islet cell transplantation of experimental animal models of diabetes, genetic modification of pancreatic islet cells and/or stem cells, IPS cells are her team's special focus of scientific interest.
Gene Therapy for Type 2 Diabetes and Cancer
Prof. Dr. Salih Sanlioglu and his team are involved in the development of novel gene therapy methods for patients with type 2 diabetes.
For this purpose therapeutic genes with anti-inflamatory properties and insulinotropic effects are being cloned into the third generation HIV based lentiviral vectors.
The therapeutic efficacy of these vectors will be tested on high fat/low dose STZ induced type 2 diabetic animal models in the near future. In addition, strengthening of the antitumoral efficacy of natural killer cells for the purpose of cancer gene therapy is another research area of interest for his team.