Education
Dr. Murat Kaya received his BSc degree from Karadeniz Technical University in 2003. He completed his Master's Degree (2005) and Ph.D. (2008) at Ankara University, Institute of Science, Department of Biology. He worked at Gent University (Belgium) for 8 months under the Erasmus Program in 2006. He studied at BARRALAB for 8 months in London Imperial College (UK) under the Lifelong Learning Program in 2008. He worked as a visiting scientist at AMEMIYA LAB at University of California Merced for 10 months under TÜBİTAK 2219 program in 2017-2018. He was awarded as a young scientist of the year (2018) in Turkey by “Bilim Kahramanları Derneği”. Dr. Kaya is working as a faculty member at Aksaray University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biotechnology. He has been a visiting researcher at Vignolini Group in Department of Chemistry at University of Cambridge since September 2021.
Interests
During my master's and doctoral studies, I gained a lot of experience in biology, invertebrate animal taxonomy, molecular phylogeny, ecology and biogeography. In the light of this gained knowledge in the field of biology, I have directed my research interests towards biomaterials production for the biomedical science, pharmacy, food and environmental engineering. In this context, we produce natural 3D chitin, chitosan and protein scaffolds for cell culture, biodegradable films for wound healing, bio-gels for food coating to extend the shelf life, fibrous and porous membranes for water purification, giant macroporous silica for bone tissue engineering and drug delivery. Nature has been producing fascinating materials since millions of years currently under explored. My primary research goals are i) to discover these secret materials in the nature (from plant or animal bodies), ii) to characterize them in detail by the state of the art techniques, iii) to solve how these materials naturally assemble in nano scale, iv) to establish inter disciplinary collaborations to explore the uses of these materials in various applications and v) to transfer them into the industry for the benefit of the society.