Problem Solving in Apheresis Medicine

Ilknur Kozanoglu is Professor of Physiology and director of the Cell Processing and Stem Cell Collecting and Therapeutic Apheresis Units at the Adult Bone Marrow Transplantation Center at Baskent University, Ankara, Turkey. She is also the director of the Hematology Research Laboratory, which she established while working for the Hematology Department at Baskent University. She started her education at the Department of Physiology, Cukurova University, Adana, Turkey, in 1998, after graduating in Medicine from Cumhuriyet University, Sivas, Turkey, in 1995. Professor Kozanoglu later worked as a research scientist at Olle Ringden's centre at Karolinska University in Sweden in 2011 on the production of mesenchymal stem cells from placental membranes and their clinical use. In the following years, she produced these cells using a bioreactor and applied them to repair the damaged microenvironment of the bone marrow. She was also a lecturer at the Department of Physiology at BaskentUniversity.

Professor Kozanoglu was head of the Scientific Subcommittee on Laboratory Standards of the Turkish Association of Hematology. She is also a member of the EBMT-JACIE International Quality Group; she works as an international JACIE representative and for stem cell product safety. In this position, she has played a role in generalizing quality standards nationwide as a national JACIE project executive. Professor Kozanoglu has been involved in the development of EU directives for cell and tissue procedures as a trainer in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the EU. Her interests include sickle cell disease, which is one of the most common genetic diseases worldwide.

She has published more than 100 research papers, the most important of which were studies on therapeutic apheresis and stem cells relevant to transplant physiology, GVHD and the bone marrow microenvironment. Professor Kozanoglu has played an important role in improving the success of stemcell transplantation in vulnerable patient populations.