An Important Study from TÜBA-GEBİP Member Dr. Erbay
2012 TÜBA-GEBİP Award recipient and Bilkent University Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics Faculty Member Assist. Prof. Ebru Erbay has gone through the literature with her study that has stopped artery stiffness, the head of the world's death, on mice.
Asst. Prof. Erbay's research was published in Science Translational Medicine, a respected science journal. Dr. Erbay makes his work unique, revealing that it is a protective function of palmitoleic acid production in the body, previously considered a bad indicator. Erbay showed that when they gave palmitoleic acid, which is a kind of fat, to mice fed with very high-calorie foods, heart and vascular diseases and vascular stiffness leading to deaths were stopped.
Indicating that palmitoleic acid, an unsaturated fat, removes other harmful, saturated oils from cells, Asst. Prof. Erbay now aims to do similar research in people. “At no time in history, there was not such a heavy burden on human metabolism. Some people are fat but not diabetic, or they are fat but do not have heart and vascular diseases. They are fat, but they live long without dementia. I think their secret is in our gene pool and in metabolites that genes produce. One of these secrets is palmitoleic acid, which our body produces. The plant bearing the secret of immortality in Gilgamesh Epic is perhaps the oleaster that is rich in palmitoleic acid on our soil.” Asst. Prof. Erbay explained.