ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR · NEONATOLOGIST
Rüya Ateşli
EPIGENETICS RESEARCHER · PHYSICIAN-SCIENTIST · LONGEVITY MEDICINE
Rüya Ateşli is a neonatologist, academician, and physician-scientist whose work bridges the earliest moments of human life with the science of healthy longevity. At her private clinic in İzmir, she provides a holistic approach to newborn care, premature infant follow-up, breastfeeding medicine, and longevity-oriented preventive child health.
Her research, grounded in epigenetics and nutrigenetics, investigates how the environment of the fetus and newborn writes instructions into the genome that shape health across a lifetime — a perspective that reframes longevity not as a goal of midlife, but as a trajectory that begins before birth.
TITLE
Associate Professor
SPECIALTY
Neonatology
RESEARCH
PhD — Medical Biology & Genetics
INSTITUTION
Ege University Faculty of Medicine
SUB-SPECIALTY
Dr. Behçet Uz Children’s Hospital
PUBLISHED IN
Neonatology & Genetics
BACKGROUND
Science in Service of Life’s First Chapter
After graduating from Ege University Faculty of Medicine, Rüya completed her paediatrics residency at İzmir Tepecik Training and Research Hospital and her neonatology subspecialty training at Dr. Behçet Uz Children’s Hospital. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Medical Biology and Genetics, focused on the epigenetic mechanisms underlying neonatal diseases.
Her scientific work centres on how early-life environmental exposures influence long-term health through epigenetic programming. She has contributed to numerous peer-reviewed publications in neonatology, neurodevelopment, neonatal intensive care, prematurity, and paediatric metabolism.
Beyond academia, Rüya is passionate about translating complex science into practical guidance for families — helping parents understand how breastfeeding, sleep, nutrition, stress regulation, and microbiota shape a child’s future health, through a holistic and evidence-based lens.
PUBLISHED IN
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
PHILOSOPHY
How Rüya Thinks About Health
The First 1000 Days
Rüya’s work is anchored in the DOHaD framework — Developmental Origins of Health and Disease. The first 1000 days of life, from conception through the second birthday, are the most consequential period in shaping long-term health. Understanding this window is not academic curiosity; it is preventive medicine at its most powerful.
Epigenetic Programming
The environment a fetus and newborn encounters — nutrition, stress, microbiota, breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact — does not merely influence early development. It writes instructions into the genome that persist across a lifetime. Rüya’s research investigates exactly how these mechanisms operate, and how they can be shaped intentionally.
Longevity Begins at Birth
Healthy ageing is not a process that begins in midlife. It is a trajectory that starts in fetal life and is continuously shaped through early childhood. Rüya’s vision is a preventive medicine in which longevity is understood — and actively cultivated — from the very first breath.
“True healing begins when the mind and body are finally allowed to speak the same language.”
— RÜYA ATEŞLI