FDr. Fatihuckun - Medical Researcher, and Professor

Dr. FatihUckun, M.D., Ph.D., a medical researcher, and professor, started his education in Germany, at the University of Heidelberg, after graduating from the German High School in Istanbul, Turkey. He earned the equivalents of his MD and Ph.D at University of Heidelberg, whereupon he relocated to the United States to accept an internship in pediatrics, followed by a residency in the same specialty at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Dr. FatihUckun also completed a research fellowship in biochemistry, microbiology, and immunology, as well as a clinical fellowship in pediatric hematology, oncology, and blood and bone marrow transplantation at the University of Minnesota between 1985 and 1992.

Dr. FatihUckun began his teaching career at the University of Minnesota. The Department of Therapeutic Radiology-Radiation Oncology appointed him an Assistant Professor in 1986. He became an Associate Professor with tenure in the same department in 1990, and then joined the Department of Pharmacology in 1992. The following year, Dr. FatihUckun was promoted to full Professorship with tenure in the departments of Pediatrics, Therapeutic Radiology-Radiation Oncology, and Pharmacology. The University of Minnesota’s Academic Health Center honored Dr. FatihUckun in 1996 as the first recipient of its Endowed Hughes Chair in Biotherapy.

In 1996, Dr. FatihUckun founded the Parker Hughes Institute together with the businessman and billionaire Wayne Hughes. Dr. Uckun served as the Director of research at Parker Hughes Institute for 11 years between 1997 and 2008. In 2009, he moved to Los Angeles to accept an appointment as Visiting Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. The following year, Dr. FatihUckun took the role of Full Professor of Research Pediatrics, a position he continues to hold today. In addition, he is a member of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. FatihUckun also has an academic appointment as Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatric Oncology, Selçuklu School of Medicine, Selçuk University, in Konya, Turkey.

Recently he published a new paper regarding the function of Ikaros protein in childhood leukemia cells. This paper examined the constitutive function of the Ikaros (IK) transcription factor in blast cells from pediatric B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BPL) patients using multiple assay platforms and bioinformatics tools. They found no evidence of diminished IK expression or function for primary cells from high-risk BPL patients including a Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)+ subset. Relapse clones as well as very aggressive in vivo clonogenic leukemic B-cell precursors isolated from spleens of xenografted NOD/SCID mice that developed overt leukemia after inoculation with primary leukemic cells of patients with BPL invariably and abundantly expressed intact IK protein. These results demonstrate that a lost or diminished IK function is not a characteristic feature of leukemic cells in Ph+ or Ph- high-risk BPL. His other notable research answered the question as to which specific patient population with prostate cancer should undergo surgery. This research tried to establish whether there are biomarkers that identify patients who need surgery.

Samson Morkel is the author of this article on Fatih uckun. Find more information, about Fatih uckun here