ICGEB mission to Turkey

The Director-General, Dr. Lawrence Banks and a delegation from the ICGEB Headquarters in Trieste, Italy visited Turkey in March 2022 to set the ground for an ICGEB RRC in Turkey.

On March 17th this year, Dr. Lawrence Banks, Prof. Marco Foiani, CSA Member and Director of IFOM, and Dr. Emanuele Buratti, Group Leader, Molecular Pathology were welcomed by Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal, President of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey – TÜBİTAK at the council’s headquarters in Ankara.

Dr. Lawrence Banks, ICGEB Director-General (left) and Prof. Dr. Hasan Mandal, TÜBİTAK President (right) at the TÜBİTAK headquarters in Ankara, Turkey

Presentations were delivered by Prof. Dr. Mandal, Prof. Dr. İhsan Gürsel, Director of the Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center and by Dr. Buratti. Discussions with the researchers who work on the COVID-19 Turkey Platform ensued.

The President of TÜBİTAK and the ICGEB Delegation also held a bilateral meeting to discuss the ICGEB Regional Research Centre. Turkey, an ICGEB Member State since 1989, submitted a formal proposal at the Board of Governors session in 2021 to host an ICGEB RRC.

The visit included a tour of the TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center – MAM, which is the proposed location of the RRC.

The DG also visited the Headquarters of the UN Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries, ICGEB partner, situated at the Gebze Campus in Kocaeli.




Read about the G20 Turkey delegation visit to ICGEB Trieste