İlknur Melis Durası

İlknur Melis Durası — Biography

İlknur Melis Durası is known both from beauty pageants and from the laboratory. A molecular biology and genetics engineer, she represented Turkey at Miss Earth in 2012. She is the founder and entrepreneur behind the MDnutriacademy project, which uses bioinformatics to uncover, at the molecular level, how multifactorial conditions such as diabetes, obesity, neurological diseases and cancer develop.

She finished Burak Bora Anatolian High School first in her class, completed her degree at Sabancı University with honours, published an academic paper before graduating and went on to do her doctorate at the same university. In 2011, as a member of Adım Adım, she represented Turkey at the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco, run for the benefit of children with leukaemia. In 2012 she signed with BG Agency and made her first appearance before the cameras in a real-estate commercial; the same year she placed third at Miss Turkey and took the Miss Earth Turkey title.

Later she combined media work with science: in 2017 she was among the first bachelor's graduates of Acıbadem University's Nutrition and Dietetics department, wrote for Mutfak Magazin about nutrition, sport, genetics and health, and produced and presented the programme Melis ile İyi Yaşam on Ekotürk TV. She speaks four languages, writes short stories and plays amateur beach volleyball, and the sports press has profiled her as a "scientist with a genetics doctorate on the beach".