Fatma Serap Aksoy (born in 1955) is a Turkish–American medical entomologist.

Early life and education

Aksoy was born in Fatih,

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

in 1955. After graduating from Robert College, she moved to the United States for her

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in biology from

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...

. Following this, she earned a PhD in Biology from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship the

Yale School of Public Health The Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) was founded in 1915 by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow and is one of the oldest public health masters programs in the United States. It is consistently rated among the best schools of public health in the co ...

Career

Following her post-doctoral fellowship, Aksoy joined the faculty at the Yale School of Public Health in 1988. She was eventually promoted to

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

in 2001 and served as the department chair from 2002 to 2010. As a full professor, Aksoy focused on studying the transmission of human African Trypanosomiasis. She was specifically interested in conducting studies to genetically alter

tsetse flies Tsetse ( , or ) (sometimes spelled tzetze; also known as tik-tik flies), are large, biting flies that inhabit much of tropical Africa. Tsetse flies include all the species in the genus ''Glossina'', which are placed in their own family, Glos ...

so it would be unable to transmit the parasite to humans and livestock. As part of this research, Aksoy also studied the genome in Sodalis, which was published in ''Massive genome erosion and functional adaptations provide insights into the symbiotic lifestyle of Sodalis glossinidius in the tsetse host.'' In 2009, Aksoy was appointed editor in chief of the '' PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases,'' after having served as the journal’s deputy editor. In 2014, Aksoy was a member of an international team of researchers that successfully sequenced the genetic code of the tsetse fly. This was a 10-year effort that began when Aksoy helped initiate the collaborative research project in the early 2000s. Following the sequencing of the genetic code, Aksoy continued to research ways to improve control methods of infections and develop strategies to reduce or eliminate its transmission. As such, she received a Fulbright Scholarship to support her project "Innovative Methods for Control of Insect-Transmitted Diseases" in Italy. Upon returning, Aksoy led a research team into examining an additional control strategy called para-transgenic expression to synthesize proteins that target trypanosomes in microbes cultivated from the gut of tsetse flies. Aksoy was also one of four Yale female professors to be honored with Women of Innovation awards by the Connecticut Technology Council. The following year, she was the first recipient of the Breakthroughs in Medical Entomology Award in recognition of her discoveries regarding the mammalian trypanosome surface proteins known as Variant Surface Glycoproteins (VSG). Her research team were the first to find why these proteins favored parasite infection transmission. As a result of her global efforts in reducing infection, Aksoy and

Peter Salovey Peter Salovey (; born February 21, 1958) is an American social psychologist and current President of Yale University. He previously served as Yale's Provost, Dean of Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Dean of Yale College. Salovey i ...

participated in a signing ceremony with the Kenya Agricultural Research and Livestock Organization and

Kenya Wildlife Service Kenya Wildlife Service is a state corporation under the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife established by an act of Parliament; Wildlife Conservation and Management Act CAP 376, of 1989, now repealed and replaced by the Wildlife Conservation and Ma ...

in 2018 to continue their existing partnership. The renewed agreement also allowed for the transfer of tsetse fly parts to Yale for further research. The following year, she was honored by the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. In 2021, Aksoy was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences for her research into microbial diseases.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aksoy, Serap Living people 1955 births Turkish entomologists American entomologists Vassar College alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Yale University faculty Fellows of the Entomological Society of America Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Robert College alumni