Dr. Ilke Ugur Marion is a computational chemist and the founder & managing partner of Meddenovo Drug Design and Consulting. Her expertise lies in innovation in drug design and pharmaceutical research.

She graduated with a bachelor's and master's degree in Chemistry from Bogazici University and completed her PhD in a joint doctoral program between Bogazici University and Universite de Lorraine in France, with the support of TUBITAK and the French Embassy in Turkey in 2014. With the advantage of the joint doctoral program, she learned and successfully applied all computational chemistry approaches. She developed her skills in formulating and solving problems in various fields of chemistry, such as organic, inorganic, biochemistry, and polymer chemistry.

Her technical expertise led her to conduct post-doctoral research at the Technical University of Munich, where her research findings were quickly recognized by experts in the field, leading to new studies. She later moved to the Faculty of Life Sciences at the same university to further develop her skills in drug design. In a short period of 1.5 years, she supervised four different theses and contributed to a total of five articles, some of which were published in prestigious journals such as Nature Chemistry and Angewandte Chemistry.

In 2017, she returned to her home country and worked as a scientific advisor and board member for the private educational institution, Ozel Sehir College. From 2018 to 2020, with the support of TUBITAK, she developed the only computational chemistry method in Turkey that detects drug resistance before clinical testing at the Department of Chemistry at METU.

In 2021, she co-founded Meddenovo with her long-time colleague and husband, which combines novel drug discovery and computer technology. This initiative quickly gained acceptance in Turkey.

Ilke, the daughter of a successful businesswoman who was a chemistry teacher, and a poet who was a literature professor, has always had a great interest in literature, performing arts, and the workings of nature. She is the mother of a four-year-old daughter and a ten-month-old son and takes great pleasure in sharing her passions with her children and watching them discover life. Ilke believes in the power of absolute good and solidarity, and she designs her work ethics based on these principles.