Özlen Konu

Özlen Konu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Bilkent University. Her research focuses on comparative transcriptomics between zebrafish and mammals, cancer systems biology, and zebrafish xenotransplantation models for drug screening in diseases like glioma and NASH. She has contributed to developing bioinformatics tools such as CAP-RNAseq and ZenoFishDb, and her work spans gene-drug-phenotype interactions, RNA-seq analysis, and systems biology applications.

• B.S. in Biological Sciences, Middle East Technical University (1987)
• M.S. and Ph.D. in Biology, Texas Tech University (1992, 1999)
• Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Tennessee at Memphis (2000-2002)

Research Interests: Comparative transcriptomics leverages zebrafish-mammal genomic similarities to identify conserved signaling pathways. Her cancer systems biology work integrates RNA-seq and omics data to model gene networks. The Konu Lab also develops zebrafish platforms for xenografts and drug screens in human disease contexts.

Publication Trends: Recent articles emphasize drug-induced liver injury, bioinformatics tool development (CAP-RNAseq), and zebrafish models for cancer and disease. Topics include genetic polymorphisms, miRNA profiling, gene network analysis, and computational methods for transcriptomic data.

Labs and Collaborations: Leads the Konu Lab (konulab.bilkent.edu.tr) and collaborates with the European Drug-Induced Liver Injury Network (PRO-EURO-DILI-NET). Her work bridges experimental and computational approaches across translational medicine and functional genomics.