I'm a biochemist working at the seam between academic protein science and industrial-scale biopharmaceutical manufacturing. My work has moved from ribosome structure and RNA evolution, through enzyme discovery and bioconjugation in Germany, to plasma-derived therapeutics manufacturing today — always chasing the question of how a molecule actually gets from a bench to a patient.
Career
2011–now
2024–now
Senior Research Specialist II, Manufacturing Sciences
Takeda Pharmaceuticals · Social Circle, GA
Driving process optimization, troubleshooting and tech transfer across IgG and Albumin manufacturing platforms; cross-functional work with Quality and Engineering on cGMP compliance.
2021–24
Senior Scientist / Research Specialist
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), UT Southwestern Medical Center · Dallas, TX
Substrate profiling of human and bacterial enzymes by LC-MS/MS; contributed to a PNAS publication.
2018–21
Project Leader
University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf · Germany
Led 3 PhD and 4 MSc students on protein discovery and enzyme characterization (Nature Communications); developed a bioconjugation method featured on the cover of ACS Bioconjugate Chemistry; taught biochemistry to 80+ medical students.
2015–18
Postdoctoral Scientist
Technical University of Munich · Germany
Devised a novel enzyme substrate profiling method (Nature Chemistry); secured €200K+ from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
2011–15
PhD, Biochemistry (Research & Teaching Assistant)
Georgia Institute of Technology · Atlanta, GA
RNA, ribosomal evolution and drug discovery — completed in under four years, published in PNAS, Scientific Reports and PLoS ONE.
Education
2015
PhD, Biochemistry
Georgia Institute of Technology
2013
MSc, Biochemistry
Georgia Institute of Technology
2009
BSc, Chemistry
Dokuz Eylül University, İzmir
Technical skills
Protein production
Mass spectrometry
Bioconjugation
Assay development
Data analysis
X-ray crystallography
A few markers along the way
Marquis Who's Who Honoree (2023) — Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
14 publications, 800+ citations, in journals including Nature Chemistry, Nature Communications, PNAS, Nucleic Acids Research and Trends in Microbiology.
Two ACS Bioconjugate Chemistry journal covers (2020, 2021) — illustrations of my own design.
Languages: English (bilingual), Turkish (native), German (B2).
Curious how a filmmaking teenager ended up here? That's a longer, better story.
