Melik Turker, Ph.D

Melik Turker, Ph.D, is the Chief Technology Officer of Zahav Bioscience, where he provides strategic, scientific, and technical leadership to support the company’s growth and development programs. He shapes the technical vision of Zahav’s platform, originates and invents new therapeutic concepts, and guides their advancement toward clinical development using scalable and translatable approaches.

Dr. Turker brings over a decade of experience in clinical-stage drug development, with expertise across translational nanomedicines, CMC, preclinical development, and global CDMO operations. Platform technologies he has co-invented and co-developed have advanced into the clinic five times. His background includes providing technical leadership for GMP manufacturing and technology transfer activities, close collaboration with external partners, and support of regulatory submissions in highly regulated environments.

Previously, Dr. Turker served as Vice President of Technology and CMC at Elucida Oncology, where he was a co-inventor of the C’Dot nanomedicine platform. He led the translation of advanced nanomedicine formulations from bench to large-scale manufacturing and oversaw early- through late-stage CMC development in support of clinical programs.

Dr. Turker holds a Ph.D and MS in Materials Science and Engineering from Cornell University and a BS in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from Istanbul Technical University. He has authored 20+ high-impact scientific publications, is an inventor on numerous patents, and was awarded a prestigious full graduate scholarship from the Republic of Turkey.

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