Sertac Arslanoglu, MD
Dr. Arslanoglu is currently the President of European Milk Bank Association (EMBA), Director of the Division of Neonatology, İstanbul Medeniyet University, School of Medicine, İstanbul, Turkiye, 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/probiotics/microbiota. After 10 years of experience working in Northern Italy, mainly in Milan, in December 2011 she moved back to İzmir, Turkiye 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 and then became the Vice President and the President of the EMBA in 2022.
At the end of 2011 on her return to Turkey, 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 be 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 Head of the Division of Neonatology 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.
