Kaya is an Associate Scientist II at GentiBio. While completing a BS in Cell and Molecular Biology at UT, Kaya worked as an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the laboratory of George Georgiou. There, Kaya’s research focused on the early development of enzyme cancer therapeutics via protein engineering to optimize the degradation of their respective substrates implicated in T-cell immunosuppression and cancer growth at elevated levels in the tumor microenvironment. Concurrently, Kaya also briefly assisted in research working to uncover novel cell polarity genes in C. elegans in partnership with the laboratory of Daniel Dickinson and the Glow Worms Freshman Research Initiative stream.
Prior to attending UT, Kaya studied the role of H3K9 trimethylation in the establishment of adult stem cell identity and activation at MD Anderson Science Park in the laboratory of Taiping Chen. In the future, Kaya intends to pursue a PhD in Immunology, though their biggest life goal by far is to train Tigress, their semi-feral little Texan cat to be a worldly big city girl.