Prof. Aziz Sancar

University of North Carolina Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics

Aziz Sancar was born in the city of Mardin, in 1946. In 1969, he completed his bachelor degree at Istanbul University, Faculty of Medicine. In 1977, he completed his doctorate on DNA repair in the field of Molecular Biology at the University of Texas at Dallas, USA, with the TUBITAK scholarship. In 1982, he completed his associate professorship in the same field of DNA repair at Yale University. Currently, Prof. Aziz Sancar continues his research as a lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of North Carolina. Throughout his academic career, he worked in DNA repair, cell sequencing, cancer therapy and the circadian clock. So far, Prof. Sancar has published 415 scientific papers and 33 books. Throughout his life his researches have been awarded many times, the following awards are just some of them:

• In 1984 US National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award.
• In 1990 American Photobiology Association Award
• In 1995 US National Institutes of Health (NIH MERIT) Award
• In 1997 TUBITAK Award
• In 2004 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award
• In 2005 Member of National Academy of Sciences, USA (First American Turk Member)
• In 2006 Turkish Academy of Sciences (TUBA)
• In 2007 Turkish Vehbi Koç Award
• In 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• In 2016 North Carolina Award - the highest civilian honor given by the state.
• In 2016 National Academy of Medicine Award