Prof. Iliana Ionkova graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Medical University of Sofia in 1979. In 1983 she defended her doctoral dissertation in pharmacognosy and phytochemistry on “Study of saponins, sapogenins and flavonoids of representatives of the genus Astragalus, distributed in Bulgaria.” Since 1983 he has been an assistant professor, since 1998 – an associate professor, and since 2010 –  professor at the Department of Pharmacognosy. In 2008 he defended his dissertation for a Doctor of pharmaceutical sciences on “Pharmaceutically significant biologically active substances from sources with optimized phytochemical potential”. He has a postgraduate specialization in Medicinal Plants at MU-Sofia. In 1990 she established the Laboratory (later direction) in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and marks the beginning in Bulgaria of innovative pharmacognosy.  

She is the founder and lecturer of the university course “Pharmaceutical Biotechnology” and a lecturer on Pharmacognosy. Ionkova’s research work and contributions are in the field of pharmacognosy, phytochemistry and pharmaceutical biotechnology. Member of 4 professional organizations in these fields. She is the author of 249 scientific papers – 143 articles in journals, of which 111 with impact factor, reports at international scientific forums – 85, copyright certificates – 2, textbooks – 10, international scientific monographs – 11, citations in indexed journals over 2660.

Expert on  phytochemistry at EDQM, Council of Europe – Strasbourg (since 2008 – and now) and at the EMA, London and Amsterdam (since 2016 – and now). Coordinator from Bulgaria of 8 international projects, funding from: NATO, UNESCO, BMFT, CEEPUS, ÖAD, head of 7 national, funded by FNI-MON, 22 at SMN-MU-Sofia. Scientific honors and awards – “SIGNUM LAUDIS PRO SCIENTIAE MERITIS” – Honorary badge for the most successful scientific development in the field of pharmacy at MU – Sofia for the period 2004-2005, “PANACEA” – for special contributions to the teaching, research and expert activity in the field of medical and biological science.

Most important 5 scientific publications:

Ionkova I. (1999), Genetic transformation in Astragalus spp., In: Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry vol. 45, Transgenic Medicinal Plants (ed. YPS Bajaj, ISBN 3-540-65120-9), Springer Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 55-72

Ionkova I. (2010), Podophyllotpxin and related lignans: Biotechnological Production by in vitro plant cell cultuers, In: “Medicinal plant biotechnology”, (Editor: Rajesh Arora), CABI Publishing, Wallingford, Oxon, United Kingdom, Chapter 9, 1-18

Savova, A. Stoimenova, B. Bogov, G. Petrova, G. Mikhailov, D. Terziivanov, E. Paskalev, I. Atanasova, I. Yonkova, T. Spasov, H. Tsachev, H. Svilenov (2016) , Biotechnological drugs – from the laboratory to the patient, publishing house “St. Cl. Ohridski ”, ISBN 978-954-07-4132-1

Sasheva P. and I. Ionkova (2017), Small Cells for Big Ideas& The Cytotoxic Podophyllotoxin and the Long Journey in Discovering Its Biosynthetic Pathway In:Biotechnology and Production of Anticancer Compopunds (ed. Sonia Malik), Springer, 177-200

Yancho Zarev, Pavlinka Popova, Kenn Foubert, Iliana Ionkova, Luc Pieters, (2020), Comparative LC–MS analysis of tropolone alkaloids from in vitro cultures and native sources of Gloriosa superba by Kendrick mass defect plots Phytochemical Analysis, 1–11