Bugsu Ovunc

Biography

Dr. Bugsu Ovunc is a pediatric pulmonologist and physician-scientist with more than 10 years of clinical and translational research experience in respiratory medicine, asthma, immunology, pediatrics, genetics, and rare lung diseases. She earned her MD and PhD from Hacettepe University and completed postdoctoral research in genetics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, followed by her clinical training in Pediatrics and Pediatric Pulmonology at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She is currently an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine, and serves on the medical staff of Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital Long Beach and Torrance Memorial Medical Center.

Her clinical expertise encompasses the full spectrum of pediatric pulmonary disease, including asthma, chronic cough, recurrent and severe respiratory disease, bronchopulmonary dysplasia and chronic lung disease of prematurity, congenital lung and airway disorders, pulmonary hypertension, restrictive lung disease, sleep-disordered breathing, and tracheostomy and ventilator management. She performs flexible fiberoptic bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). Building on her doctoral and postdoctoral training in genetics, she has a particular clinical and research interest in rare and genetically mediated lung diseases, including cystic fibrosis (CF), primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD), and childhood interstitial lung disease (chILD).

Dr. Ovunc established a Pediatric and Adult Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia Clinic at Miller Children’s Hospital and Long Beach Medical Center and served as principal investigator of an IRB-approved PCD research program. She has been actively involved in national and multi-site rare disease research collaborations, including the genomics working group of the Children’s Interstitial Lung Disease Research Network (chILD-RN).

As a clinical investigator, Dr. Ovunc has served as lead investigator on multiple global Phase 1–3 clinical trials in pediatric and adult respiratory, allergic, immunologic, and rare diseases, collaborating with pharmaceutical and biotechnology sponsors including AstraZeneca, GSK, Sanofi, Amgen, and Novartis. Her research experience includes clinical development, protocol implementation and design, patient safety and data review, and cross-functional collaboration with clinical operations, regulatory, and medical affairs teams.

Dr. Ovunc is a member of the Editorial Board of Pediatric Pulmonology and remains actively engaged in advancing clinical care and translational research in pediatric respiratory and rare lung diseases.

Education

• MD, Hacettepe University , 2007
• PhD, Hacettepe University, 2012
• Post Doctoral Research Fellowship , University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2012