Dr. Özçubukçu started his chemistry career as early as secondary school. He participated in International Chemistry Olympiad three times and got bronze, silver and gold medal. After graduation from METU Chemistry Department, in 2002, within the same year, he got his M.S degree. He moved to RWTH Aachen University, Germany in 2003 for Ph.D and worked on C-H activation, asymmetric catalysis and organosilanols under supervision of Prof. Dr. Carsten Bolm. He got his Ph.D degree in 2007 and afterwards went to ICIQ, Spain (Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia) for postdoctoral work with Prof. Dr. Miquel Pericàs. He worked on click catalysts and organocatalysis before moving to Chicago in 2008 for his second postdoctoral work. He worked on protein engineering and chemical protein and peptide synthesis in the University of Chicago with Prof. Dr. Chuan He.
Since May 2011, he is a faculty member of METU Chemistry Department and working on peptides for various applications. He was granted to Mustafa Parlar Foundation, METU Educator of the year award, 2015. He is also giving an extraordinary course: Chem 495 Chemistry in Popular Culture, which is designed and created by him.
He is also a co-founder of a start-up company, PeptiTeam. It is the first and only company in Turkey that produces commercial peptides for both academical and industrial purposes.