Our university is implementing a project that will bring foreign experts in the field of human resources to Turkey. Our laboratories, which will contribute to our society and science, were introduced at the meeting held with members of the press whom we welcomed at the Life Sciences and Biotechnology Institute.
Bezmialem Gureba-i Muslimin Hospital, founded by Valide Sultan as a health and education institution in 1845, continues to provide education in the field of health as Bezmialem Vakıf (Foundation) University. Our university is leading the way by implementing a valuable project that will import experts in the fields of human resources in Turkey. The Life Sciences and Biotechnology Institute History of Beykoz Kışlası is hosted by a team of academicians who have completed their expertise education in the best universities of the world. Our institute is engaged in industrial enzyme and Hepatitis B vaccine production, malaria, Crimean Congo and parat hormone production. As well as being an important step for brain migration, these studies also aim to create a serious resource for reducing the imports made in the health field.
Bezmialem Vakif University Chairman of the Board of Trustees Ahmet Akca stated on the history of Beykoz Barracks and the day-to-day process as : "The building which was established at the beginning of the 1800's at the time of Selim III served as a cholera hospital for a certain period. Nowadays it has become a molecular medicine research institution of the modern times. My childhood years passed here. This place was the barracks of the garrisons of the naval cadets. It was abandoned for a long time. The Vakıflar Second Regional Directorate showed us this building while we were in search of a place for Bezmialem in 2011. I already get excited at the mention of Beykoz. It was restored by the Metropolitan Municipality and they were about to hand it over to a foundation. We made contact immediately and obtained it for our foundation. Ofcourse, the glass had been broken, the wall was demolished, and it became a place for the alcoholics in the past. We experienced such a distressing process. The roof was broken, the walls were leaking, swollen and worn. It was not possible to use it, and the restoration took 2 years. Chemicals were injected into the stone walls, the walls were recovered. Steel columns were designed by us. This building has 200 years of history and we wanted to build a building that will survive for the next 200 years. Our goal is this: beyond meeting the daily needs of Bezmialem or of society, to meet the needs of Turkeys next 30 – 50 years with scientific studies".
While stating that the first lecturer, Dr. Serdar Uysal, who has been brought to the Biotechnology Institute, came from Harvard University, Dr. Ahmet Akca continued; "As soon as he arrived he said to us, 'I produce enzymes' While we were continuing restoration, he had established his laboratory in the basement and produced enzymes. Turkey annually imports $ 150 million industrial enzymes. Industrial enzymes hold $ 300 million in the market, and it is not produced in Turkey. But it is now beginning to be produced in Turkey. We have professors arriving here from Canada and America".
Our Rector Prof. Dr. Rumeyza Kazancıoğlu, who says that the only multidisciplinary hospital that performs parathyroid gland transplant in the world is Bezmiâlem, continued, "Patients who have undergone thyroid surgery have to use drugs continuously, because they have parathyroid glands as a complication of this surgery. We are carrying out operations that do not require continuous drug use by performing parathyroid transplantation for people who are suffering from this disease. We are one of the two health institutions in the world that can perform this operation , and the only health institute that can carry the operations out in a multdisciplinary fashion. We have received a license to carry on the operations from our Ministry of Health in Turkey, and in this sense, we are the first and only health institution to do so. Patients from Germany arrive here for treatment. In addition, we are working on producing parathormone secreted by parathyroid glands at our laboratories in the Beykoz Institute, and we are in the stage of production. In the world, this production is very limited and can be offered at very high costs. We are carrying out our efforts to offer a much more affordable cost to our society."
Dr. Serdar Uysal who gave information on industrial enzyme researches spoke as follows, "Researches have two aspects. One; in order to catch up with other countries in countries like Turkey who are behind biotechnology by 25-30 years, to cover the two or three years with the technological advance the way developed nations have accomplished in 8-10 years and to complete the finished products with reverse engineering using local resources.Secondly, we need to invest heavily in the basic science and build the technology of the following 20 years. We need to have two fields parallel to each other and a strong source of human resources to feed these two fields. This is what we want to do in this institute. We are going to work in such a special place and nourish a seriously grown human resource abroad with specialist human resources and progress in parallel to the two areas mentioned above.The industrial enzyme researchand development here and our production is a good example of university-industry cooperation., we get to have valuable chemicals produced for them by using industrial enzymes and micros from 30 years ago as a factory. Valuable chemicals can be insulin, hepatitis B, or amylase used in bread. The products produced by recombinant DNA and microbial systems are the sectors that reach over 100 billion dollars. In Turkey, all of them imported. We make our microorganisms, which are present in our bodies or around us and accepted in the GRAS status, to be suitable for world standard food and environmental regulations. We are designing the circuit from DNA like the electronic circuit into the organisms we have turned into this factory. We give orders to the organism by putting the circuit we designed into the microorganism; 'The enzyme is at this temperature, at that pH, using the carbon and nitrogen source to produce it.' We are doing production R & D here. With the pilot system we have established in our laboratory, we are working on the production conditions necessary for industrial production to be operational. It should also be understood that the added value of all biotechnological products, from the enzyme we produce to pharmaceutical drugs, is so high that it is incomparable to other industries. To summarize, we carry out basic scientific researches on the technological products of the following 20 years while we recycle the biotechnological products from 20 years ago, at the institute, with the reverse engineering and try to substitute imported products locally ."
There are 10 laboratories in the Life Sciences and Biotechnology Institute, which are planned to conduct research in the field of health and biology. Over time, at the institute where approximately 100 academic staff will take place, six faculty members from Harvard University and different universities in the United States began to take up position. Bezmiâlem Vakıf University Chairman of the Department of Medical Microbiology Prof. Dr. Mehmet Ziya Doymaz stated that doctoral experts, doctoral students and graduate students and technicians will work in various numbers with each faculty member and continued as, "The researcher academic member requirements of the Institute will be completed by bringing them in to our country through the brain , in contrast to the respected universities of the world. We are still in the process of academic member procurement. We have released our ads abroad."
