Sezen Meydan, PhD

Dr. Sezen Meydan is an assistant professor of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt University (Tennessee, USA) where she just opened her lab in July of 2024 to delve deeper into mechanisms regulating translation. Her independent lab’s research expands upon her postdoctoral work with Dr. Nicholas Guydosh at the National Institute of Health (NIH) (Bethesda, USA) where she developed tools to measure eukaryotic ribosome collisions. Specifically, Dr. Meydan’s lab will explore how the ribosome acts as a signaling hub through ribosome collisions and the role collisions play in different cell types, stress conditions, and diseases.

Dr. Meydan credits her family for her decision to pursue science, especially as that meant moving from Turkey to the United States for graduate school. “My mom, as a single parent, always emphasized the importance of education and reading,” she shares. “My brother introduced me to my first “science at home” book among many other science books, which really fueled my curiosity towards nature.” Inspired by this, Dr. Meydan initially trained as a pharmacist at Hacettepe University in Turkey, where she gained undergraduate research experience in a pharmacognosy lab exploring natural drugs. Dr. Meydan credits her undergraduate mentors, Prof. Funda Nuray Yalcin and Prof. Pelin Kelicen Ugur from Hacettepe University, for teaching her the importance of community in science, which she is carrying forward into her own lab. “Their dedication to mentorship and training students, their ability to balance research time and family, and their interactions with other researchers taught me that being a researcher is not only limited to producing data at the bench but also being part of a community of curious and dedicated people.”

Building on her early interest in using natural product chemistry to develop novel therapeutics, Dr. Meydan was drawn to the lab of Dr. Alexander (Shura) Mankin and Dr. Nora Vasquez-Laslop (University of Illinois Chicago, USA) after learning about the promise of RNA therapeutics in a graduate class taught by Dr. Mankin. “I learned that they work on ribosome stalling-induced antibiotic resistance mechanisms, which equally excited me so much that I decided to rotate in their lab,” Dr. Meydan recalls. “The more I learned in their lab, the more I got interested in ribosomes and translation.” Looking to expand her research into eukaryotic mechanisms of translation, which promised increased relevance to human health, Dr. Meydan conducted her postdoctoral training with Dr. Nicholas Guydosh at the NIH, where she explored how ribosome collisions can serve as stress sensors. She is quick to point out that one of the most exciting aspects of working at the NIH was the number of RNA researchers she was able to interact with. “Throughout my postdoc I received valuable, frequent, and critical feedback from other investigators in the campus working on ribosomes,” she explains. “This was a unique opportunity and I am really grateful I got to work in this supportive RNA community.” Having benefitted from her conversations with other investigators and trainees, she advises other trainees to “always be curious, excited about your research, and not be afraid to ask questions (both to others and yourself).”

“Being a researcher is not only limited to producing data at the bench but is also being part of a community of curious and dedicated people.”

While Dr. Meydan’s postdoctoral experience was scientifically enriching, it was not without its difficulties. Like many current trainees, her postdoc was interrupted by the pandemic, which led to lab shutdowns and tight restrictions on lab occupancy at the NIH. To deal with this, Dr. Meydan instead focused on developing other skills, including grant writing and engaging in training and volunteer activities remotely. She also emphasizes the challenges faced by working parents juggling science and family. “As much as I love my career, it was extremely difficult to leave my baby and go back to work after only 3 months,” she recalls. “I felt that I was not physically and mentally ready. It helped to talk to other mother scientists around me who went through similar emotions and supported me through this transition process. One person told me that she sees working mothers as superheroes, and I really agree with her now!”

In addition to the daily heroics performed by working parents, Dr. Meydan also highlights the incredible work on RNA therapeutics carried out by heroes among RNA Society members. In particular, she remembers the Science and Society Lecture given by Dr. Adrian Krainer at the 2017 RNA Society meeting in Prague, where he showed videos of children who had received anti-sense oligos to treat spinal muscular atrophy. “I remember a lot of people in the audience cried when he showed those videos and he received a standing ovation after his talk. This was an impressive case of how basic science research led to a treatment.” Dr. Meydan hopes to use her lab’s research on translation regulation in healthy and diseased states to inform possible treatment options, bolstered by the “belief that we can use RNA therapeutics to treat debilitating illnesses.”

As Dr. Meydan begins to grow her new lab and uncover what happens to ribosomes in the context of different diseases, she reflects on how her approach to science has changed over the course of her career. Dr. Meydan now chooses to “focus on good questions and the significance of the question first, before I even start doing an experiment. Whenever I think of a project now, I first construct specific aims like I am writing a grant. That way, the questions are clear, which gives me the exact plan for experiments.” Her ability to elegantly structure a series of experiments around a central set of questions has continuously led to impressive results, including recognition with the 2023 RNA Society/Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Award for Research Excellence by an Underrepresented Scientist.

Dr. Meydan knows that she can count on the RNA Society’s journal for great RNA-focused work.  One of her favorite papers in RNA is Disease-associated mutations in mitochondrial precursor tRNAs affect binding, m1R9 methylation, and tRNA processing by mtRNase P. Further, her favorite RNA is “bacterial 5S rRNA since it likes to be independent”. You can find her on Twitter/X @SezenMeydan or check out her lab’s website for more information.