School of Medicine student Yasemin Cole will be attending the University of Cambridge pursuing a doctoral degree in genomic sciences. She was one of 28 individuals chosen nationwide for the competitive and fully funded scholarship.
This content originally appeared in a story by the Office of Distinguished Scholarships.
Cole is a multinational geneticist who sees the importance of genetics to the future of applied medicine and also has a passion for refugee health. She holds dual citizenship with Turkey and speaks Turkish and Spanish.
As a biology major and with minors in medical anthropology and chemistry, Cole graduated with highest distinction and induction into Phi Beta Kappa. As an undergraduate researcher at UNC-Chapel Hill and the National Institutes of Health, she gained an understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying disease, ranging from genetic therapies for diabetes (Anton Jetten Lab, NIH) to the circadian rhythms of tumors (Aziz Sancar Lab, UNC School of Medicine). It was through this work that she found her passion in cancer molecular biology and precision medicine. Her research work in Jeanette Cook’s lab at UNC School of Medicine culminated in a senior honors thesis on the phosphorylation regulation of Cdt1, a protein in the cell cycle. She has co-authored multiple articles in “Molecular Biology of the Cell” and “PLOS One.”