Proteomics Society (Turkey)

The Proteomics Society (Turkey) is a nonprofit organization which was constituted in the sense of a scientific society on March 11, 2011. 
The mission of Proteomics Society is to consolidate Turkish scientists engaged in the proteomics research. Proteomics Society in Turkey intends to promote scientific, innovative research and educational activities in Turkey and will represent and promote proteomics technologies through national and international cooperation and collaborations by fostering the development of new technologies, techniques and trainings.
The society will develop networking between the researchers working in the proteomics field to enhance our current knowledge in the field, to open doors to possible scientific collaborations and to interact with neighboring countries. 

Proteomics Society (Turkey) was founded in Istanbul, Turkey with 10 founder members, five of which are the board members and the rest are vice members. (Aysel Ozpinar, Ozge Can, Ibrahim Unsal, Mustafa Serteser, Guldal Gulec, Abdurrahman Coskun, Tanil Kocagoz, Cengiz Yakicier, Beki Kan, Tamer Inal).
Since March 11, 2011, Proteomics Society in cooperation with the Acibadem University School of Medicine has organized one annual meeting with the participation of national and international speakers. Vivamed, the official distributor of BioRad in Marmara Region, Turkey, was one of the sponsors of this event. Society has started accepting new memberships at the 1st International Symposium of the Proteomics Society (Turkey) with an inauguration ceremony, which was held on 2nd of June, 2011 at the Acibadem Maslak Hospital, Istanbul. The title of the symposium was “New Trends in Clinical Proteomics”.  Inauguration symposium was a total success with approximately 200 registrations from the universities, technology centers, pharmaceutical companies, and biotechnology companies across Turkey according to our records. Symposium was (http://www.acibadem.edu.tr/?pid=2721) gathered around 150 participants and three international and five national speakers.  Participants were from 33 different institutions, 67% of which was from universities, 24% was from research hospitals and the rest was from pharmaceutical and biomedical companies. 32% of the universities were from outside of Istanbul. The distribution of the state, private and international universities and Technological and Scientific Research Council of Turkey (Tubitak) was 45%, 36%, 14% and 5%, respectively.

Invited international speakers and organizers from the left are Andrea Urbani, Ozge Can, Paola Roncada, Aysel Ozpinar, and Florian Schweigert.

After Prof. Dr. Aysel Ozpinar’s inauguration address, scientists have presented their work with 50 minute presentations. Prof. Dr. Florian Schweigert from the Potsdam University, Germany gave a presentation on clinical proteomics in diagnostic medicine and research. Professor Schweigert is a professor of Physiology and Pathophysiology of Nutrition and department head, visiting professor of the Mihadol University Bangkok, Thailand and president of the Society of Applied Vitamin Research. In the second session, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cengiz Yakicier, professor of molecular biology and genetics, talked about new trends in clinical genomics followed by a presentation on general view of proteomics given by a BioRad representative Ali Umman Dogan. In session three, Prof. Dr. Andrea Urbani, president of the Italian Proteomics Association, professor of Medicine and Surgery at University of Rome gave a lecture on proteomics strategies in the investigations of neurodegenerative disorders. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Murat Kasap from Kocaeli University presented biomarker research in the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and proteomics approaches and Dr. Ahmet Tarik Baykal from the Technological and Scientific Research Council of Turkey presented his work on proteomic evaluation of thoracic aortic aneurysm. In the last session, Dr. Paola Roncada from University of Milan gave a speech on milk proteomics. The final talk was given by Assist. Prof. Dr. Ozge Can, whose presentation was on the novel techniques in small molecule design. The symposium was finalized with a closing ceremony, where all the session chairs and presenters received appreciation certificates.

Proteomics Society (Turkey) currently has 40 members and additional prospective members who have shown interest to join the society.

The Society is planning to hold and arrange scientific and educational activities including but not limited to organizing conferences, symposiums, courses, and short lectures on matters related to Proteomics to facilitate the exchange of scientific information between scientists worldwide.
The Society strongly believes in stimulating young scientists to continue in the field of proteomics by supporting research training exchanges with the laboratories outside of Turkey.
Society will become a member of international societies working on a similar task and one of the aims of the Proteomics Society (Turkey) related to this issue is to join the European Proteomics Association (EuPA) in order to share knowledge and increase the possibility of the scientific collaborations with European scientists.