Aziz Sancar

Aziz Sancar is a molecular biologist from Turkey who focuses on the circadian clock, cell cycle checkpoints, and DNA repair. Along with Tomas Lindahl and Paul L. Modrich, he shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Chemistry for his mechanistic research on DNA repair. He produced innovations in his profession by studying photolyase and nucleotide excision repair in bacteria.

Sancar is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He is a co-founder of the non-profit Aziz & Gwen Sancar Foundation, which supports Turkish students studying in the US and promotes Turkish culture. Sancar is an honorary member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Turkish Academy of Sciences.

Two genes, Period and Cryptochrome, Sancar and his research group have found, maintain the circadian clocks of all human cells in proper rhythm, synchronizing them to the 24 hours of the day and the seasons. On September 16, 2014, the Genes and Development journal released their findings. Sancar's study has established a thorough understanding of how human Circadian clocks function, which may be utilized to cure a variety of ailments and conditions like jet lag and seasonal affective disorder as well as to manage and improve a number of cancer treatments.