Ivet Bahar

Ivet Bahar is a Turkish-American computational biologist, currently serving as a Distinguished Professor and the John K. Vries Chair at University of Pittsburgh.[1] Dr. Bahar is also the co-founder of an internationally-acclaimed PhD program in Computational Biology, CPCB, jointly offered by the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.[2]

Ivet Bahar
Born
Istanbul, Turkey
Alma mater
Known for
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Websitewww.ccbb.pitt.edu/Faculty/bahar/

Research

Dr. Bahar adapted fundamental theories and methods of polymer statistical mechanics to biomolecular structure and dynamics. She pioneered a modified version of the classical Rouse model, to examine the collective dynamics of proteins modeled as elastic network models (ENMs). ENMs have three strengths: simplicity, ability to yield a unique solution for each structure, and efficient applicability to supramolecular complexes/assemblies. Her theory and methods have withstood numerous tests since their inception, and established fundamental concepts in molecular biology: the role of entropy-driven fluctuations defined by 3D contact topology in optimizing biomolecular interactions; the evolutionary pressure for robustly maintaining structural dynamics to support flexible mechanisms of actions – not only structure to ensure stability; the ability of proteins to exploit their structure-encoded dynamics to adapt to promiscuous interactions and mutations as demonstrated in numerous applications, including neurotransmitter transporters in recent years. Recent application to chromosomal dynamics provided insights into the physical basis of gene co-expression and regulation events.[3]

Personal life

Dr. Bahar currently resides in Pittsburgh. She came to the United States to become a professor at University of Pittsburgh, Department of Molecular Genetics & Biochemistry in 2001. Notably, she is the first Turkish female scientist elected to the National Academy of Sciences of the United States.[4] In 2016, she was invited by President Barack Obama as a guest speaker to the White House to give a speech titled "Big Data in Multiscale Modeling and Biology".[5]

References
  1. "Ivet Bahar". pitt.edu. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  2. News from the National Academy of Sciences
  3. News & Highlights
  4. Turkish professor elected to prominent US science institution
  5. Who is Ivet Bahar


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.