Information

Related Research Units

Fetal Neonatal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center Research
Newborn Medicine Research

Research Overview

 Dr. Turk's research interests are primarily focused on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). During her MSc and PhD studies, she worked on analysis of the safety of MRI examination for patients with active implants and also on B1 field mapping techniques. In 2013 she joined the Madrid-MIT M+Vision consortium as a postdoctoral fellow and proposed a project titled “Assessment of placental function in growth restricted pregnancies by means of MRI” with her colleagues. She was responsible in the study design, data processing and motion mitigation. Since she joined FNNDSC, she has been working on the assessment of placental function with a growing interest on fetal response to the placental well-being and also fetal MRI safety.

Research Background

Esra Abaci Turk completed her BS degree in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Middle East Technical University, Turkey in 2006. She received her PhD degree in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Bilkent University, Turkey in June 2013 with an expertise in MRI physics. In July 2013, she joined the Madrid-MIT M+Vision consortium as a postdoctoral fellow and with her colleagues proposed a project on placental imaging under the supervision of Dr. Ellen Grant in early 2014 and funded by Consejeria de Educacion, Juventud y Deporte de la Comunidad de Madrid (Spain). In 2015, Dr. Abaci Turk joined FNNDSC as a research fellow.

Publications

  1. Recent innovations in placental MRI: Integrating visualization and functional imaging. Placenta. 2026 May 13. View Abstract
  2. Relationship between placental oxygen transport, fetal birth weight, and umbilical cord transcriptome in monochorionic twins. J Neonatal Perinatal Med. 2026 May; 19(3):307-312. View Abstract
  3. Robust Fetal Pose Estimation across Gestational Ages via Cross-Population Augmentation. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2026; 15966:549-559. View Abstract
  4. Fetuses Made Simple: Modeling and Tracking of Fetal Shape and Pose. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2026; 15970:189-198. View Abstract
  5. SE(3)-Equivariant and Noise-Invariant 3D Rigid Motion Tracking in Brain MRI. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2024 11; 43(11):4029-4040. View Abstract
  6. Network conditioning for synergistic learning on partial annotations. Proc Mach Learn Res. 2024 Jul; 250:119-130. View Abstract
  7. AnyStar: Domain randomized universal star-convex 3D instance segmentation. IEEE Winter Conf Appl Comput Vis. 2024 Jan; 2024:7578-7588. View Abstract
  8. Shape-aware Segmentation of the Placenta in BOLD Fetal MRI Time Series. J Mach Learn Biomed Imaging. 2023 Dec; 2(PIPPI 2022):527-546. View Abstract
  9. Change in T2* measurements of placenta and fetal organs during Braxton Hicks contractions. Placenta. 2022 10; 128:69-71. View Abstract
  10. Volumetric Parameterization of the Placenta to a Flattened Template. IEEE Trans Med Imaging. 2022 04; 41(4):925-936. View Abstract
  11. STRESS: Super-Resolution for Dynamic Fetal MRI using Self-Supervised Learning. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2021 Sep-Oct; 12907:197-206. View Abstract
  12. Quantitative T1 and T2 mapping by magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF) of the placenta before and after maternal hyperoxia. Placenta. 2021 10; 114:124-132. View Abstract
  13. Motion Analysis in Fetal MRI using Deep Pose Estimator. Proc Int Soc Magn Reson Med Sci Meet Exhib Int Soc Magn Reson Med Sci Meet Exhib. 2021 May; 29. View Abstract
  14. Rapid head-pose detection for automated slice prescription of fetal-brain MRI. Int J Imaging Syst Technol. 2021 Sep; 31(3):1136-1154. View Abstract
  15. Semi-Supervised Learning for Fetal Brain MRI Quality Assessment with ROI consistency. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2020 Oct; 12266:386-395. View Abstract
  16. Enhanced detection of fetal pose in 3D MRI by Deep Reinforcement Learning with physical structure priors on anatomy. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2020 Oct; 12266:396-405. View Abstract
  17. Corrigendum to "Placental MRI: Effect of maternal position and uterine contractions on placental BOLD MRI measurements" [Placenta 95 (2020) 69-77]. Placenta. 2020 Oct; 100:171-172. View Abstract
  18. Placental MRI: Development of an MRI compatible ex vivo system for whole placenta dual perfusion. Placenta. 2020 11; 101:4-12. View Abstract
  19. Fetal pose estimation from volumetric MRI using generative adversarial network. Proc Int Soc Magn Reson Med Sci Meet Exhib Int Soc Magn Reson Med Sci Meet Exhib. 2020 Aug; 28. View Abstract
  20. Placental MRI: Effect of maternal position and uterine contractions on placental BOLD MRI measurements. Placenta. 2020 06; 95:69-77. View Abstract
  21. Automatic extraction of the intracranial volume in fetal and neonatal MR scans using convolutional neural networks. Neuroimage Clin. 2019; 24:102061. View Abstract
  22. Fetal Pose Estimation in Volumetric MRI using a 3D Convolution Neural Network. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2019 Oct; 11767:403-410. View Abstract
  23. Placental Flattening via Volumetric Parameterization. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2019 Oct; 11767:39-47. View Abstract
  24. Automatic brain tissue segmentation in fetal MRI using convolutional neural networks. Magn Reson Imaging. 2019 12; 64:77-89. View Abstract
  25. Exploring early human brain development with structural and physiological neuroimaging. Neuroimage. 2019 02 15; 187:226-254. View Abstract
  26. Computer-Vision Techniques for Water-Fat Separation in Ultra High-Field MRI Local Specific Absorption Rate Estimation. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2019 03; 66(3):768-774. View Abstract
  27. Frequency Diffeomorphisms for Efficient Image Registration. Inf Process Med Imaging. 2017 Jun; 10265:559-570. View Abstract
  28. Spatiotemporal alignment of in utero BOLD-MRI series. J Magn Reson Imaging. 2017 08; 46(2):403-412. View Abstract
  29. Temporal Registration in In-Utero Volumetric MRI Time Series. Med Image Comput Comput Assist Interv. 2016 Oct; 9902:54-62. View Abstract
  30. Approximate Fourier domain expression for Bloch-Siegert shift. Magn Reson Med. 2015 Jan; 73(1):117-25. View Abstract
  31. A simple analytical expression for the gradient induced potential on active implants during MRI. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2012 Oct; 59(10):2845-51. View Abstract
  32. Reduction of the radiofrequency heating of metallic devices using a dual-drive birdcage coil. Magn Reson Med. 2013 Mar 01; 69(3):845-52. View Abstract
  33. Functional expression of the Vibrio parahaemolyticus Na+/galactose (vSGLT) cotransporter in Xenopus laevis oocytes. J Membr Biol. 2002 May 01; 187(1):65-70. View Abstract
  34. A ligand-dependent conformational change of the Na+/galactose cotransporter of Vibrio parahaemolyticus, monitored by tryptophan fluorescence. J Membr Biol. 2002 Feb 01; 185(3):249-55. View Abstract
  35. Characterization of the Vibrio parahaemolyticus Na+/Glucose cotransporter. A bacterial member of the sodium/glucose transporter (SGLT) family. J Biol Chem. 2000 Aug 25; 275(34):25959-64. View Abstract
  36. Molecular characterization of Vibrio parahaemolyticus vSGLT: a model for sodium-coupled sugar cotransporters. J Biol Chem. 2000 Aug 18; 275(33):25711-6. View Abstract
  37. Proteomics on full-length membrane proteins using mass spectrometry. Biochemistry. 2000 Apr 18; 39(15):4237-42. View Abstract
  38. Regulation of the human Na(+)-glucose cotransporter gene, SGLT1, by HNF-1 and Sp1. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 2000 Apr; 278(4):G591-603. View Abstract
  39. Missense mutations in SGLT1 cause glucose-galactose malabsorption by trafficking defects. Biochim Biophys Acta. 1999 Feb 24; 1453(2):297-303. View Abstract
  40. Structure and function of the Na+/glucose cotransporter. Acta Physiol Scand Suppl. 1998 Aug; 643:257-64. View Abstract
  41. Conformational changes couple Na+ and glucose transport. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1998 Jun 23; 95(13):7789-94. View Abstract
  42. Membrane topology motifs in the SGLT cotransporter family. J Membr Biol. 1997 Sep 01; 159(1):1-20. View Abstract
  43. Five transmembrane helices form the sugar pathway through the Na+/glucose cotransporter. J Biol Chem. 1997 Aug 15; 272(33):20324-7. View Abstract
  44. Compound missense mutations in the sodium/D-glucose cotransporter result in trafficking defects. Gastroenterology. 1997 Apr; 112(4):1206-12. View Abstract
  45. Sodium cotransporters. Curr Opin Cell Biol. 1996 Aug; 8(4):468-73. View Abstract
  46. Kinetic and specificity differences between rat, human, and rabbit Na+-glucose cotransporters (SGLT-1). Am J Physiol. 1996 Jun; 270(6 Pt 1):G919-26. View Abstract
  47. Prenatal identification of a heterozygous status in two fetuses at risk for glucose-galactose malabsorption. Prenat Diagn. 1996 May; 16(5):458-62. View Abstract
  48. Defects in Na+/glucose cotransporter (SGLT1) trafficking and function cause glucose-galactose malabsorption. Nat Genet. 1996 Feb; 12(2):216-20. View Abstract
  49. Membrane topology of the human Na+/glucose cotransporter SGLT1. J Biol Chem. 1996 Jan 26; 271(4):1925-34. View Abstract
  50. Structure of the human Na+/glucose cotransporter gene SGLT1. J Biol Chem. 1994 May 27; 269(21):15204-9. View Abstract
  51. Assignment of the human Na+/glucose cotransporter gene SGLT1 to chromosome 22q13.1. Genomics. 1993 Sep; 17(3):752-4. View Abstract
  52. Relaxation kinetics of the Na+/glucose cotransporter. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1993 Jun 15; 90(12):5767-71. View Abstract
  53. The sodium/glucose cotransporter (SGLT1). Soc Gen Physiol Ser. 1993; 48:229-41. View Abstract
  54. Cloning of a human kidney cDNA with similarity to the sodium-glucose cotransporter. Am J Physiol. 1992 Sep; 263(3 Pt 2):F459-65. View Abstract
  55. Sodium cotransport proteins. Curr Opin Cell Biol. 1992 Aug; 4(4):696-702. View Abstract
  56. The Na+/glucose cotransporter (SGLT1). Acta Physiol Scand Suppl. 1992; 607:201-7. View Abstract
  57. Molecular genetics of intestinal glucose transport. J Clin Invest. 1991 Nov; 88(5):1435-40. View Abstract
  58. Glucose/galactose malabsorption caused by a defect in the Na+/glucose cotransporter. Nature. 1991 Mar 28; 350(6316):354-6. View Abstract
  59. Molecular biology of Na+/glucose cotransport. Biochem Soc Trans. 1989 Oct; 17(5):810-1. View Abstract
  60. Molecular genetics of the human Na+/glucose cotransporter. Klin Wochenschr. 1989 Sep 01; 67(17):843-6. View Abstract
  61. Homology of the human intestinal Na+/glucose and Escherichia coli Na+/proline cotransporters. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1989 Aug; 86(15):5748-52. View Abstract

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