Dr. Imed Gallouzi joined KAUST as Professor of Bioscience and Developmental Biology and as Associate Director of the KAUST Smart-Health Initiative. From 2001-2021, Imed was Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, at the Biochemistry Department, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He received his Ph.D. in 1998 from Université  Montpellier II, France and did a postdoctoral training from 1998 to 2001 at Yale University. 

He held a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Cellular Information Systems from 2002 to 2012 and is a full panel member of several national and international funding agencies such as CIHR, CCSRI, FRSQ and NIH. Prof. Gallouzi’s research focused mainly on the role of posttranscriptional mechanisms in cellular adaptation to stressful and pathological conditions. In 2000, he was the co-discoverer of the cytoplasmic RNA granules known as stress granules and their importance in the stress response of the cell. He was also the first to use cell-permeable peptides to delineate the shuttling pathways of RNA-binding proteins (RBPs). In 2012, his observation connecting stress granules formation to the prevention of cancer-induced muscle wasting was selected by the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute as one of the top 10 findings of the year. More recently, he made significant contributions to the field of cancer cachexia-mediated muscle wasting by uncovering the role of the RNA Binding Protein (RBP) HuR in the onset of this deadly syndrome. Prof. Gallouzi is also interested in the role of RBPs in senescence and aging. 

During his tenure at McGill University, Prof. Gallouzi held several key administrative positions locally and internationally. He chaired the Graduate Advisory Committee of the Biochemistry Department at McGill University from 2008 to 2014 and he was appointed in 2019 as the associate chair (education) of the Biochemistry Department. The same year, he was appointed as the academic coordinator for a new Pre-Med program in French at McGill commissioned by the Quebec Government. In 2014 he was hired by KAUST BESE as a visiting professor for six months, during which he established the Molecular and Cellular Biology teaching lab for the BESE MSc program. He also helped Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Doha, Qatar, to establish a Life Science Division and its graduate and research programs. At HBKU, he established two graduate (MSc and Ph.D.) programs, Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) and Genomics and Precision Medicine. Prof. Gallouzi played a key role in implementing the Life Sciences Division at KBKU, which was transformed to become the new College of Health and Life Sciences in 2018. Prof. Gallouzi also has a passion for teaching and training students.