Prof. Sertaç Aslanoğlu
SERTAC ARSLANOGLU, MD, Neonatologist
Professor of Neonatal Medicine
currently is the
- Past President, Founder/Board Member of the European Milk Bank Association (EMBA)
- Administrative Director of the Division of Neonatology & Department of Pediatrics
İstanbul Medeniyet University, School of Medicine, İstanbul, Türkiye
- Scientific Coordinator and Member of the Board of Directors, Italian Association of Human Milk Banks (AIBLUD), Milan, Italy
Her main field of research is neonatal nutrition, human milk, human milk banking, human milk fortification, methodologies of preterm infant feeding, and prebiotics/microbiota. After 10 years of experience working in Northern Italy, mainly in Milan, in December 2011 she moved back to İzmir, Türkiye by invitation, primarily to establish human milk banking in this country.
During her stay in Italy she worked mainly as a neonatologist, and as “Responsible for the Nutritional Management in NICU and as the Coordinator of Nutritional Research” at the Center for Infant Nutrition of Macedonio Melloni Maternity Hospital, University of Milan. She also collaborated with Turin and Modena Universities as a Consultant on Neonatal Nutrition and Research. In 2008 Prof. Arslanoglu became an active ESPGHAN member. In 2009 she has been nominated as a component of the Working Group on Nutrition of the World Association of Perinatal Medicine. In 2010 she acted as one of the founding members of European Milk Bank Association (EMBA). She took the duty first as treasurer, then became the Vice President in 2012 and the President of EMBA in 2022.
At the end of 2011 on his return to Türkiye, she was appointed as the Chief of the Division of Neonatology at the Children’s Hospital in İzmir. She established the first human milk bank there in 2013, but due to some religious issues, the established bank could not been functional officially. She designed a model of milk banking compatible with Islamic belief and her efforts are continuing for her journey of milk banking establishment in her country. Professor Arslanoglu had the academic degrees of Associate Professorship in 2009 and Full Professorship in 2015.
She is now acting as a clinician and academician at İstanbul Medeniyet University School of Medicine and is the Administrative Director of the Division of Neonatology & Department of Pediatrics at the University Hospital. She acted as organizer and/or scientific secretary in many international and national scientific congresses; participated to more than 80 international congresses as an invited speaker and moderator.
She is currently leading a EU funded Imagine-HMB Project aiming to prepare harmonized Milk Banking Guidelines across Europe to comply with the European Regulation on SoHO, where EMBA is the coordinator. She also leads the EMBA Working Group of Human Milk Fortification, and collaborates with Italian Association of Milk Banks as the Scientific Coordinator and Guidelines Working Group Member with the aim to improve the quality and nutritional value of donated milk through optimal fortification, processing and updated guidelines. Recently she has been involved in the preparation of the breast milk chapter for the 6th edition of the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) Guide to the quality and safety of tissues and cells for human application.
Her intensive research of 20 years on human milk and milk banking area resulted in numerous international/national guidelines, recommendations, ESPGHAN and other Society Consensus Statements, new fortification and milk banking models, and expansion of milk banking. She has more than 200 international and national publications and book chapters. Her publications have 8647 citations and her h-index is 37.