Ebru Aras-Hira

Ebru received her B.S. in Molecular Biology and Genetics from Bilkent University and her M.S. in Biology from Middle East Technical University in Türkiye, then completed her Ph.D. at the University of Geneva, where she studied neuroendocrine regulation of metabolism. She joined the Kostic Lab as a postdoctoral fellow to investigate the connections between the gut microbiome, metabolism, and exercise. Her current research focuses on understanding how the gut microbiome communicates with host metabolism and influences exercise, physical activity, and metabolic diseases, particularly through microbial metabolites like lactate and short‑chain fatty acids; she uses mouse models, bacterial interventions, metabolomics, and metabolic phenotyping to uncover the mechanisms behind these interactions. She chose the Kostic Lab because she wanted to expand her background in metabolism into the microbiome field, was excited by the opportunity to study how microbes and their metabolites can influence whole‑body physiology beyond traditional pathways, and appreciated that the combination of microbiology, metabolism, and translational research made the lab a great place to explore those questions.