New ETRL Director appointed
On August 15, 2024, Gonca E. Karahan was appointed as the Director of the Eurotransplant Reference Laboratory (ETRL) and she is looking forward to this role, where she can combine her experience in the histocompatibility field with her research expertise. Currently, as a senior scientist, Gonca E. Karahan leads a Dutch Kidney Foundation-funded project investigating the role of HLA-specific memory B cell detection in the immunological risk assessment of highly sensitized kidney transplant patients undergoing desensitization treatments.
Gonca E. Karahan studied biomedical sciences at Istanbul University, Turkey, graduating in 2000. She spent the next 11 years at the HLA Laboratory of Istanbul Medical Faculty, where she combined patient-related work with pursuing an MSc in 2003 and a PhD in 2010 in medical biology under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Mahmut Carin and Prof. Dr. Fatma Oguz. Her research during this time focused on anti-HLA antibody detection in sensitized kidney transplant recipients.
In 2012, she moved to the Netherlands to further her research in immunology, joining the Transplantation Immunology Research Laboratory at the Leiden University Medical Center. As a PhD student under supervision of Dr. Sebastiaan Heidt and Prof. Dr. Frans Claas, she developed several methods for HLA-specific memory B cell detection in kidney transplant patients. After earning her PhD in immunology in 2017, she continued as a post-doctoral scientist in the same group, expanding her research to study anti-HLA antibody characteristics and alloreactive immune memory.