Prof. Dr. Aykut ÖZDARENDELİ
Department of Medical Microbiology, Faculty of Medicine
Prof. Dr. Aykut Özdarendeli has been serving as the Director of the Erciyes University Vaccine Research and Development Application and Research Center (ERAGEM) since 2015. He is also a faculty member at the Department of Medical Microbiology in the Faculty of Medicine at Erciyes University. From 2016 to 2019, he served as the Director of the Institute of Health Sciences and is currently an active member of the Scientific Research Projects (BAP) Commission.
Prof. Dr. Özdarendeli completed his PhD in Virology in 1997 at Fırat University, Institute of Health Sciences. In 1998, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Fırat University, and conducted postdoctoral research in virology at University of Tennesse, USA, for three years. After returning to Fırat University in 2001, he continued his research in virology and earned the title of Associate Professor in 2005. His research focused on Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), particularly the isolation, characterization, and diagnosis of the virus. In 2009-2010, he completed a second postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh’s Vaccine Research Center in the USA. In 2011, he joined Erciyes University Faculty of Medicine as a Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology, and since the establishment of ERAGEM in 2013, he has prioritized vaccine development projects as its Director.
Under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Özdarendeli, an inactivated vaccine for CCHF, developed by his team, was granted a global patent in 2013 following their application. Prof. Dr. Özdarendeli and his team have continued their research on virus isolation and characterization for both CCHF and COVID-19, followed by vaccine development. The COVID-19 vaccine, developed under the coordination of ERAGEM, progressed from preclinical to Phase 2 trials. Following the Phase 3 trials led by the Turkish Ministry of Health, the TURKOVAC vaccine received emergency use authorization in December 2021. A national patent application has also been filed for this vaccine. Additionally, Prof. Dr. Özdarendeli and his team have obtained another patent for a recombinant viral vector-based vaccine against CCHF, and efforts are ongoing to advance this vaccine to the clinical trial phase.
Contact Information:
Website: https://avesis.erciyes.edu.tr/aozdarendeli
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6950-8545
Email:aozdarendeli@erciyes.edu.tr, aozdarendelia@gmail.com
Phone:+90 352 437 9300
