Prof. NURDAN KÖKTÜRK

Prof. Dr. Nurdan Köktürk

Dr. Nurdan Köktürk graduated from Gazi University School of Medicine in 1993 and completed her residency in Pulmonary Medicine at the same institution in 1999. She pursued her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Florida’s Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Laboratory in Gainesville, Florida, USA (2000–2001). Upon her return, she was appointed Instructor in Pulmonary Medicine at Gazi University in 2001. She was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2006 and to Associate Professor in 2007. That same year, she engaged in molecular research at the Interstitial Lung Disease Laboratory, Pulmonology Department, Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv University, Israel. In 2011, she was promoted to Full Professor of Pulmonary Medicine, and in 2013, she conducted research at the COPD Research Center’s stem cell laboratory at Asan Medical Center, Ulsan University, Seoul, South Korea.

Dr. Köktürk’s primary academic and research focus is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). She has authored more than 200 scientific publications and received numerous national and international research awards.

She has been an active member of the Turkish Thoracic Society (TTS) since 2003, where she led the COPD Working Group for several years and served as President of the 21st TTS Congress. She has collaborated extensively with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Turkish Ministry of Health through the GARD Turkey Project, chairing the C4 Working Group for multiple years. She becam a Vice Coordinator of Turkish GARD project in 2019. Again, since 2018, she has been a member of the GOLD Assembly.

Within TTS, she served as Chair of the Foreign Relations Executive Committee (2019–2021), was elected President-Elect (2021–2023), and subsequently served as President (2023–2025). She currently holds the position of First Vice President. Beyond TTS, she has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Turkish Respiratory Board since 2024. On the international stage, she was elected to the Steering Committee of WHO GARD in November 2023.