Aziz Sançar

Who is Aziz Sançar?

Professor Aziz Sancar is a Turkish scientist specialising in DNA repair, cell cycle checkpoints, and the circadian clock. His longest-running study has involved photolyase and the mechanisms of photo-reactivation. In his inaugural article in the PNAS, Sançar 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. Sancar completed his M.D. in İstanbul University of Turkey and completed his Ph.D. on the photoreactivating enzyme of E. coli in 1977 in the laboratory of Dr. C. Stan Rupert, now Professor Emeritus. Aziz Sancar is presently the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry, at the University of North Carolina, 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 UNC-CH, short term guest services for Turkish visiting scholars, and a center from promoting Turkish-American interchange.