Tanyeri Barak, MD

I graduated from Istanbul University, Istanbul Faculty of Medicine in 2011. Following a brief clinical experience in neurosurgical residency training in Istanbul, I came to the USA in 2013 to pursue a carrier in basic science research. I completed my postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Gunel Lab and now currently working in Gunel Lab as an Associate Research Scientist since 2015.

As a member of Gunel Lab, I helped identifying the role of LAMC3 in human brain visual cortex development, one of the few genes discovered for region-specific cortical development in humans. I also helped elucidate the functional roles of NDE1 and WDR62 genes in human microcephaly.

During my postdoctoral fellowship and my current assignment as an associate research scientist in Gunel Lab, my primary research focus has been gene discovery in cerebrovascular disorders including intracranial aneurysms and functional validation of the candidate genes using zebrafish, Xenopus tropicalis (frog) and mouse models. I am particularly studying atherosclerotic and non-atherosclerotic endothelial and smooth muscle cell remodeling using scRNA-seq and spatial transcriptomics.

My research has been accepted/published in Nature Medicine (Cerebral Aneurysms-In print), Nature Genetics (Cortical Malformations), Nature (Cortical Malformations), American Journal of Human Genetics (Cortical Malformations), JAMA Neurology (Moyamoya), Journal of Neurooncology and Neurooncology.