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Alabama State University's Forensic Science Program Receives Prestigious International Grant (1354 hits)

ASU's Dr. Javan is acclaimed for her major discoveries in forensic science at an international level

Alabama State University’s nationally acclaimed expert on forensic science, Dr. Gulnaz Javan, has just received a $30,000 postdoctoral fellowship grant for a forensic pathologist from Turkey to come to the University for a year to assist her with the groundbreaking forensic research she does here in her lab at ASU.

The fellowship, awarded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), a leading science and research foundation in the Turkish government, includes travel expenses to and from Turkey and living expenses while in the United States for a scholar from that nation.

“The forensic science program is very proud to collaborate with TUBITAK and her fellow in this international research effort,” said Douglas Strout, a professor in the program. “Javan and her fellow have proven to have the necessary qualifications to contribute to major discoveries in forensic science at an international level.”

Javan and her fellow’s cutting-edge research studies will use internal organ tissues from human remains to determine ways that the Thanatotranscriptome, or gene expression after death, provides evidence of the time since death.

“I am so excited to have the first postdoctoral fellow in our forensic science program,” Javan said. “The fellow will join the Javan Thanatos Laboratory in July 2018. The postdoc will work on postmortem gene expression (thanatotranscriptome).”

'Thanatotranscriptome' is a new scientific term created by Javan. The term was introduced in an original article published in the Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology Journal.

“This new appointment will help assure the continued growth and development of the Forensic Science Program by providing his medicolegal experience to enhance current research in the Javan Thanatos Laboratory here at Alabama State University,” said Sheree Finley, ASU researcher in the Physical Science Department.