During her doctorate training in the laboratory of Marian Walhout [Wikidata], she studied gene regulatory networks that pertain to the metabolism of the model organism, C. elegans.

[2][3] Interested in gene regulatory networks and developmental biology, Arda joined the laboratory of Seung K. Kim [Wikidata] at Stanford University for her postdoctoral training.

This work revealed thousands of putative enhancer regions that explain cell type-specific gene expression in the human pancreas.

Arda and colleagues examined the gene expression and chromatin profiles of pancreas cells isolated from children and adults and found specific gene-expression programs that are turned on after the age of 10.

[2] Arda's laboratory aims to delineate the gene regulatory networks that control the development, expansion and function of human pancreatic cells.