Sebnem Ece Eksi, Ph.D. (she/her)

  • Assistant Professor of Division of Oncological Sciences, School of Medicine
  • Assistant Professor, Neuroscience Graduate Program, School of Medicine
  • Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine
  • Cell, Developmental and Cancer Biology, School of Medicine

Biography

S. Ece Eksi, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Oncological Sciences at Oregon Health & Science University. Her research aims to uncover biological principles that govern neural regulation of the tumor microenvironment and to reveal new opportunities for cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Dr. Eksi’s laboratory integrates high-plex spatial proteomics, computational image analysis, and experimental cancer models to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms of cancer-nerve communication. Her team studies these processes across prostate and pancreatic cancers, combining human patient cohorts with in vitro and in vivo models to identify actionable mechanisms of neural regulation within the tumor microenvironment. The long-term goal of her research program is to improve both survival and quality of life for people living with cancer.

Education and training

  • Degrees

    • B.S., 2011, Bogazici University
    • Ph.D., 2017, University of Illinois at Chicago

  • Internship

    • Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology

Memberships and associations:

  • Genetics Society of America
  • American Association for Cancer Research
  • International Alliance for Cancer Early Detection

Areas of interest

  • Cancer Neuroscience
  • Prostate Tumor Microenvironment
  • Digital Pathology
  • Early Detection
  • Tumor Heterogeneity
  • Spatial Profiling
  • Multi parametric MRI

Additional information

Honors and awards

  • Early Career Scientist, Division of Cancer Prevention, NCI, 2026
  • Prostate Cancer Foundation, Young Investigator Award, 2025
  • International Alliance for Cancer Early Detection Grant, ACED, 2022
  • EMBL Corporate Partnership Grant, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, 2018
  • Graduate Teaching Award, University of Illinois, 2017
  • Award for Excellence in Research Mentorship, University of Illinois, 2015

Publications

Selected publications

  • Sattler, A.L., Diba, P., MacPherson-Hawthorne, K., Pelz, C., Grieco, J., Korzun, T., Kuykendall, M.J., Sears, R.C., Marks, D.L., Sherman, M.H., Zimmers, T.A., Eksi, S.E.^. Sympathetic nerve–fibroblast crosstalk drives nerve injury response, fibroblast activation, and matrix remodeling in pancreatic cancer. JCI Insight, Volume 11, Issue 7. doi/org/10.1172/jci.insight. 192814 (2026).
  • Wang, K., Ait-Ahmad, K., Kupp, S., Eksi, S.E.^, Chang, Y.H.^  UniFORM: Towards Universal Immunofluorescence Normalization for Multiplex Tissue Imaging. Cell Reports Methods, Volume 5, Issue 9. doi.org/10.1016/j.crmeth.2025.101172 (2025). 
  • Fredrikson, J.P., Roth, D.M., Cosgrove, J.A., Sener, G., Crow, L.A., Eckenstein, K., Wu, L., Hosseini, M., Thomas, G., Eksi, S.E., Bertassoni, L.^ Engineering Neuronal Networks in Jammed Microgels to Innervate Bioprinted Cancer Organoids On-a-Chip. Lab on a Chip, 25, 3467-3481. doi.org/10.1039/D5LC00134J (2025). 
  • Sattler, A, Korzun, T, Gupta, K., Diba, P., Kyprianou, N., Eksi, S.E.^ Sympathetic nerve signaling rewires the tumor microenvironment; a shift in ‘microenvironmental-ity’. Cancer and Metastasis Rev 44, 25. doi.org/10.1007/s10555-025-10241-x (2025). 
  • Kupp, S.D., VanGordon, I.A., Gönen, M., Esener, S., Eksi, S.E., Ak, C^. Interpretable and integrative analysis of single-cell multiomics with scMKL. Commun Biol 8, 1160. doi.org/10.1038/s42003-025-08533-7 (2025).
  • Ak, C., Sayar, Z., Thibault, G., Burlingame, E., Kuykendall, M.J., Eng, J., Chitsazan, A., Adey, A., Boniface, C., Spellman, P., Thomas, G.T., Ryan, P., Chan, Y.H., Demir, E., Stavrinides, V. Eksi, S.E.^ Multiplex imaging of localized prostate tumors reveals altered spatial organization of AR-positive cells in microenvironment. iScience, Volume 27, Issue 9. doi/org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.110668 (2024). 
  • Eksi, S.E.^, Chitsazan, A., Sayar, Z., Thomas, G., Fields, A., Kopp, R., Spellman, P., Adey, A.^  Epigenetic loss of heterogeneity from low to high grade localized prostate tumours. Nat Commun 12, 7292. doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27615-8 (2021). 
  • Eksi SE, Barmina O, McCallough CL, Kopp A, Orenic TV (2018) A Distalless-responsive enhancer of the Hox gene Sex combs reduced is required for segment- and sex-specific sensory organ development in Drosophila. PLoS Genet 14(4): e1007320. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1007320
  • Eksi SE, Chitsazan A, Sayar Z, Thomas GV, Fields AJ, Kopp RP, Spellman PT, Adey AC. Epigenetic loss of heterogeneity from low to high grade localized prostate tumours. Nat Commun. 2021 Dec 15;12(1):7292. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-27615-8. PMID: 34911933; PMCID: PMC8674326.
  • Vasilis Stavrinides, Ece Eksi, Ron Finn, Larissa Texeira-Mendes, Sarina Rana, Nick Trahearn, Alistair Grey, Francesco Giganti, Eric Huet, Gaelle Fiard, Alex Freeman, Clare Allen, Alex Kirkham, Alexander P. Cole, Tom Collins, Douglas Pendse, Louise Dickinson, Shonit Punwani, Nora Pashayan, Mark Emberton, Caroline M. Moore, Clement Orczyk. Magnetic Resonance Imaging Follow-up of Targeted Biopsy–negative Prostate Lesions, European Urology Focus, Volume 9, Issue 5, 2023, Pages 781-787.
  • Gustafson KT, Sayar Z, Le H, Gustafson SL, Gower A, Modestino A, Ibsen S, Heller MJ, Esener S, Eksi SE. cyc-DEP: Cyclic immunofluorescence profiling of particles collected using dielectrophoresis. Electrophoresis. 2022 Sep;43(16-17):1784-1798. doi: 10.1002/elps.202200001. Epub 2022 Jul 11. PMID: 35753078.
  • Sebnem Ece Eksi, Joshua C. Saldivar, Cohesin Is Out for Stalled Replication Fork Restart, Developmental Cell, Volume 52, Issue 6, 2020, Pages 675-676, ISSN 1534-5807, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2020.03.001.