Dr. Akpek was born in Karsiyaka, Turkey. He received his B.Eng degree from Department of Biomedical Engineering of Baskent University as one of the first biomedical engineers of the country. During his education, he mainly focused on biomedical electronics. After graduation, he expanded his research interest to biotechnology and obtained a Master of Science degree in Biotechnology from Ege University. He mainly focused on microbiology and nanoionics during his master training. In 2010, he was awarded with Monbukagakusho scholarship from Japan and worked as a research scientist in Bionanotechnology Laboratory at Department of Bioengineering of University of Tokyo. His main research theme was "Nanochannel Fabrication Methodologies for Cell Fusion". He started his Dr. Eng training in Department of Mechano-Micro Engineering (Micro-Mechatronics) of Tokyo Institute of Technology in 2011. His main doctoral researches were "Non-Uniform Temperature Field in Viscosity Measurement” and “Adapting a Magnetic Levitating Artificial Blood Pump as a Vibrational Viscometer". This research is supervised by Prof. Toshiharu Kagawa. During his doctoral training, he was mainly focused on Fluid Engineering and Heat & Mass Transfer phenomenon.

 

Later, he joined Harvard University Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Science & Technology as a visiting professor. During his residency, he focused on tissue engineering, 3D Bioprinting technologies, and Organs on a Chip devices.

 

Dr. Akpek worked in Istanbul Yeni Yuzyil University as an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering. Currently, he is working as an Associate Professor of Bioengineering in Gebze Technical University. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Sabancı University Nanotechnology Research and Application Center.

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Dr. Akpek is also an entrepreneur and a managing partner of one of the first angel investment & consulting firm of Turkey that is primarily focused on biotech. The company helped the initiation of more than twenty bio-related start-ups in Turkey and raised more than 14,000,000 TL

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Dr. Akpek is married and has a daughter.