Ayhan Ulubelen

Ayhan Ulubelen was born in 1931 in Turkey. She is a member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences. She completed her degree in analytical chemistry at Istanbul University in 1956, followed by two years of postdoctoral research at the University of Minnesota. She then went on to spend four years at the University of Arizona working on an NIH project in cancer research. In 1976, she became a full professor at Istanbul University, while spending several months at a time in Japan supported by JSPS, in Germany supported by DAAD, and at the University of Texas in Austin under the auspices of a NATO project.

Early life and career
Ayhan was born on August 20, 1931, in Istanbul, Turkey. Her father was an army officer and her mother was a housewife. In high school, she saw a movie about Madame Curie and soon wanted to be a chemist.

Early career and education
Ulubelen was unable to find a job in the chemical industry. Eventually, there was an opening for an analytical chemist at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Istanbul University. She and another man both applied for the job. Since the man was unable to pass the language examination, she received the position.

Research
Ayhan's main area of research focuses on the structure determination of natural products and pharmacological investigation of the isolated compounds. She started by investigating plants that are found in great numbers in Turkey, first working with triterpenes and flavonoids then moving on to diterpenoids. She found new compounds and identified their structures with UV, IR, NMR, mass spectrometry, and other techniques. The Turkish plants that she researched were associated with old Turkish folklore medicine. She wanted to find which ingredient of the plant produced certain effects. Plants in Turkey are a large part of their medicine, producing many different cures, such as one for spontaneous abortion and another for wound healing.

While testing on mice, Ayhan found an abortive agent developing cystic degeneration in the ovaries. . Ayhan was not sure if it was from the abortive agent compound, and said she would conduct further tests. Ten compounds came from that plant, and the study they did with the mice was to give each mouse a different compound. Then a group at the Faculty of Medicine studied the ovaries, the livers, the kidneys, and the brains for the mice. They looked for any harmful effects possible from the compound. At that time, Ayhan said "...we can't recomment that women should be using these plants as an abortive agent. We have so informed the pharmacist who sent them to us, and I'm sure she's passing this information on to the villagers." Ayhan was working on spontaneous abortion, along with cancer, HIV, and diabetes. Her samples come from Turkey, but the methods used are the same as everyone else's. She shared her experiences with colleagues at international meetings. Ayhan believed if she had the conditions and possibilities of a United States or Germany scientist then she could be doing much better with her research.

Accomplishments
During her career of 60 years she has published more than 300 papers, authored two books and has also authored 12 book chapters in international books. She is still actively publishing scientific articles. Ayhan's research has received strong support from Fulbright, NIH, DAAD, JSPS, and NATO.

Ayhan Ulubelen’s contributions have been recognized through the awarding of many honors including, Honorary Membership to the Chemical Society of Turkey (first time ever this award was given, 1985), membership to the NATO Scientific Committee (selected from among ten NATO countries, 1986–1990), Science Award by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (1991), Full member (1994–2001) and Honorary Member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (2001-), and in the first years of her career with the American Pharmaceutical Association Young Scientist awards (1962, 1963, 1964). She also served in the Chemrawn Committee of IUPAC first as an associated member and as a full member (2003–2009).

Ulubelen has mentored over 20 graduate students, many who have proceeded to prominent positions in academia, pharmaceutical and chemical companies.