Zebrafish at the Interface of Development and Disease Research

Dr. Kirsten Sadler Edepli is a cell biologist and geneticist whose research focuses on the molecular basis of liver development and two important liver diseases, liver cancer and fatty liver disease. After studying biology and Anthropology at Mount Holyoke College in MA, she obtained a Masters in Medical Sciences at Harvard Medical School (1994) and a Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology at Harvard University (1998). She joined the faculty at Bosphorus University in Istanbul/Turkey and then moved to work with Nancy Hopkins at MIT where she screened for zebrafish mutants with liver disease and growth defects. She started her lab as assistant professor in Departments of Medicine and of Developmental and Regenerative Biology at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York in 2006, where she was promoted to associate professor in 2013. In 2015, she joined the faculty of New York University in Abu Dhabi as a tenured associate professor in the Biology Program. She runs an active research group focused on epigenetic control of liver development, regeneration and cancer and on the fatty liver disease. She teaches, is an active member of the NYU academic community, and serves her passion of promoting gender equity in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) through a range of activities, including serving as the faculty advisor for Women Empowered in STEM at NYUAD.