Natalya Melikyan (Ter-Meliksetyan) was born on May 20, 1906, in the Murshudali Armenian-populated village of the Surmalinsky Uyezd, Erivan Governorate of the Russian Empire.

During those years, in collaboration with biologist Alexander Araratyan, she studied oil-producing wild plants, aiming to put them in mass production.

Collaborating with Mikhail Chailakhyan, who arrived from Moscow, Melikyan studied the accumulation of lignin in plant stalks and its anatomical features.

The results were summed up in her monograph "Structural changes in plants and lignin accumulation dynamics, depending on environmental conditions," published in 1959.

In 1962–1982, she was the head of the "anatomical, physiological and biochemical characteristics of tuber-forming plants" scientific program conducted by the department.