I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, where I studied the effects of developmental constraint in the developing Drosophila sex combs. Developmental biology, particularly the development of reproductive systems, caught my attention.

For my masters, I was drawn to study the placenta, a uniquely mammalian organ connecting the developing fetus and the mother. I used the mouse model to look at the role of Notch signaling in placental cell differentiation, and have worked on generating an organ culture system for the placenta at McGill University in Montréal.

After completing my masters and my duties as a part-time mouse gynecologist, mouse match-maker, or mouse house "madam"... I joined the Extavour lab to focus on the key players of reproduction - germ cells!

Additionally, I can still be comfortably seated at my elementary school desk, not that this has anything to do with science, but I am quite proud of it.

Didem is a graduate student in the OEB Program, and holds a Postgraduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and a Doctoral Training Fellowship from the Fonds de la recherche en sante (FRSQ).

Publications

Sarikaya, D.P., Belay, A.A., Ahuja, A., Green, D.A., Dorta, A. and Extavour, C.G. The roles of cell size and cell number in determining ovariole number in Drosophila. Developmental Biology Epub Dec 19 (2011).

Green, D.A., Sarikaya, D.P. and Extavour, C.G. Counting in oogenesis. Cell and Tissue Research 344(2): 207-212 (2011).

Sarikaya, D. P., and Jerome-Majewska, L.A. Notch1 and the activated NOTCH1 intracellular domain are expressed in differentiated trophoblast cells. Cell Biology International 35: 443-447 (2010).