GSCN Young Investigator Award 2025 for Aydan Bulut-Karslıoğlu
The award recognizes the scientist's research on dormancy
Aydan Bulut-Karslıoğlu receives this year GSCN 2025 Young Investigator Award for her research on mechanisms regulating stem cell state transitions and fate commitment. Particularly, her lab studies mammalian embryonic diapause – a reversible dormant state that gives embryos extra time to develop to increase chances of survival. Aydan and her team made a series of discoveries on metabolic and epigenetic regulation of this dormant state, shedding light on this once mysterious phenomenon. Her team’s additional work on oxygen sensing showed the extent to which stem cell fate decisions are influenced by the cellular environment.
“Networks like the GSCN help scientists with a shared passion come together and consolidate efforts to move the field forward. I am very proud to be honored with this prize that recognizes our team’s work on breaking new ground in the biology of dormancy“, Aydan Bulut-Karslıoğlu says.
Aydan received her PhD in 2013 from Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, where she worked with Thomas Jenuwein on epigenetic mechanisms. In 2013, she joined Miguel Ramalho-Santos’s lab at the University of California San Francsico as a postdoc. During this time, she discovered mTOR as a regulator of developmental timing in the mouse. In 2018, she received the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award to start her independent research lab at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. She received an ERC Starting Grant in 2023 and ERC Proof of Concept Grant in 2025.
The German Stem Cell Network (GSCN) is an initiative that brings together the expertise in stem cell research in Germany and develop synergies between basic research, regenerative medicine and pharmacology. With the GSCN Awards 2025, the German Stem Cell Network recognizes outstanding stem cell researchers on their way of exploring and gaining insights into cellular mechanisms.
Aydan will give a lecture about her work at the Presidential Symposium on Thursday, 16 October 2025, at the GSCN Conference in Munich.
Find more information:
www.gscn.org/scientific-resources/german-stem-cell-network-awards
https://gscn-conferences.org/gscn-conference-2025
More information about Aydan Bulut-Karslıoğlu’s lab.
