His longest-running study has
involved photolyase and the
mechanisms of photoreactivation. In his inaugural
article in the PNAS, Sancar
captures the elusive photolyase
radicals he has chased for
nearly 20 years, thus providing
direct observation of the
photocycle for thymine
dimer repair. Aziz Sancar was
elected to the National
Academy of Sciences in 2005
as the first Turkish-American
member. He is the Sarah
Graham Kenan Professor
of Biochemistry, at
the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is
married to Gwen Boles Sancar,
who graduated the same year
and who is also a Professor of
Biochemistry
and Biophysics at the
University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. Together, they
founded Carolina Turk Evi, a
permanent Turkish Center in
close proximity to the campus
of UNC-CH, which provides
graduate housing for four
Turkish researchers at UNCCH, short term guest services
for Turkish visiting scholars,
and a center for promoting
Turkish-American interchange.
Education
Sancar completed
his M.D. degree in Istanbul
University of Turkey and
completed his Ph.D. degree on
the photoreactivating enzyme
of E. coli in 1977 at
the University of Texas at
Dallas in the laboratory of Dr.
C. Stan Rupert, now Professor
Emeritus.
Awards
He was awarded the
2015 Nobel Prize in
Chemistry along with Tomas
Lindahl and Paul L.
Modrich for their mechanistic
studies of DNA repair. Sancar
is the second Turkish Nobel
laureate after Orhan Pamuk,
who is also an alumnus of
Istanbul University.
Controversies
When questioned about his
ethnicity by the BBC, Aziz
Sancar stated that he was
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