Professor Imed Gallouzi has served as a Professor, COO and Associate Director of the KAUST Smart Health Initiative since January 2021. Prior to his work at KAUST, Professor Gallouzi worked for 20 years at McGill University as a Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Biochemistry Department and Goodman Cancer Center, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Professor Gallouzi completed his Ph.D. in 1998 in Molecular Biology at University Montpellier II, France. He then undertook his postdoctoral training from 1998 to 2001 at Yale University. ​

​Professor Gallouzi is a world-class scholar in the field of mRNA Biology where his work on the role of posttranscriptional mechanisms and their impact on cellular adaptation to stressful and pathological conditions has led to key contributions in the field. In 2000, he was the co-discoverer of the cytoplasmic RNA granules known as stress granules (SGs) and their importance in the stress response of the cell as well as in the onset of numerous pathologies. He was the first to use cell-permeable peptides as a tool to delineate the shuttling pathways of RNA-binding proteins. In 2012 his observations 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.​