Turgay Dalkara - Biography#

Dr. Turgay Dalkara is a Professor of Neurology and a member of the Faculty of Medicine and the Director of the Neuroscience PhD program at the Institute of Neurological Sciences and Psychiatry, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. He received his MD, Neurology and PhD (Pharmacology) trainings at Hacettepe University and, did his Postdoctoral fellowship at the Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University. He joined the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston in 1992 and then held a joint appointment for 28 years until Covid pandemic. Prof. Dalkara’s research focuses on the basic mechanisms of ischemic brain injury and migraine and on targeted brain drug delivery. He received 2013 Medicine award by The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and has been awarded with the highest scientific honors in Turkey. He is a principal member of TWAS, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and Turkish Academy of Sciences. His international publications in English include 25 book chapters and 160 articles. He is a co-editor of a book on neurobiology of migraine. His publications have received over 16000 citations.

Prof. Dalkara has played a pioneering role for the development of neurosciences in Turkey and promoting interest to scientific research among clinicians and medical students. He established the first Turkish Neuroscience PhD program in 1991 and the first undergraduate MD-PhD program in 2003. He also pioneered the development of a Neuroscience and Neurotechnology joint PhD program between the Hacettepe University Institute of Neurological Sciences and Psychiatry and the Middle East Technical University, Ankara.

He was the director of the Institute of Neurological Sciences and Psychiatry for 19 years. The Institute has established active collaborations with leading universities in the EU and USA. It has high international visibility. All faculties working in the institute hold medical specialist and PhD degrees in neurosciences. His laboratory has demonstrated an outstanding performance in translational research by publishing in high impact journals such as Science, Nature Medicine and Nature Nanotechnology, despite limited resources in Turkey. The institute is highly regarded as one of the best scientific centres and a model in Turkey. Its graduates hold key appointments to promote science in leading Turkish Universities. More than half of teaching faculty of the Institute is female.