Fowzan Alkuraya

Fowzan Sami Alkuraya is a Saudi scientist and academician specializing in genetics. He is a senior genetics consultant at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center and a researcher in genetics at al-Faisal University, Riyadh City, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He holds local, regional, and international awards in the field of genetics.

Fowzan Alkuraya studied at King Saud University. He graduated in 1999 and traveled to the United States of America where he studied at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He returned to the Kingdom in 2007, after overseeing a number of research in the United States, but remains a faculty member at Harvard University.

Fowzan Alkuraya has produced around 420 peer-reviewed scientific research papers. His research contributed to identifying new physiological functions and compositions of hundreds of genes. His research also enabled the diagnosis of several genetic disorders. Alkuraya is a member of the editing team of scientific periodicals, a senior speaker, and a guest of honor at global scientific conferences. In 2017, he was appointed chairman of the award committee of the Genetics Society of America.

Fowzan Alkuraya collaborated with a research team from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) to develop the "NanoRanger" genome sequencing system, a modern diagnosis tool for identifying mutations leading to genetic disorders. It is also a low-cost and efficient tool dedicated to patients with genetic disorders caused by unidentified mutations. The "NanoRanger" technology was adopted to enhance several genome sequencing processes. It also offers diagnoses to patients as well as their fathers and mothers who did not realize that they are carriers of genetic disorders nor were aware of the risks to their offspring.

In another collaboration, Fowzan Alkuraya contributed along with a research team from KAUST to the development of an RNA testing tool leveraging AI technologies for enhancing the diagnosis of genetic disorders, ultimately improving disease management and offering the necessary preventive services.

He led a research team from King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in the discovery of the gene responsible for a type of severe disability associated with microcephaly, severe facial deformity, scaly skin, and early death. His research team identified for the first time ever the relationship between around one hundred genes and many types of disabilities. Their discoveries were published in peer-reviewed scientific periodicals, where they contributed to understanding the composition and function of the human body. These discoveries enable families with these types of genetic disorders to prevent future disabilities among their offspring thanks to early diagnosis during pregnancy, thus ensuring the birth of disability-free children.

Fowzan Alkuraya was granted many awards throughout his scientific and research career. In 2020, the American Society of Human Genetics awarded him the "Curt Stern" award in recognition of his contributions to human genetics and the importance of his discoveries in establishing the concept of existing associations between genes and human health.

Alkuraya is the first to be granted this award from outside American scientific societies since the award launch in 2001.

In 2014, Alkuraya received the King Salman Award for Disability Research (currently known as the King Salman International Award for Disability Research) for the medical and health sciences category. In 2010, he received the William King Boyce Jr. Award for Medical Genetics from Harvard Center for Personalized Medicine in Boston, becoming the first recipient of this award from outside the United States.

In 2019, Fowzan Alkuraya received the Distinguished Scientist Award as part of Almarai Prize for Scientific Creativity. In 2022, he was honored by King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, among sixteen of the hospital's scientists who ranked among the top 2 percent of the world's most-cited scientists and researchers for their published research in twenty-two research fields in which more than eight million researchers participated globally.

In 2022, he was presented with Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Award for Distinguished Medical Personalities in the Arab World. In 2015, he received the Medical and Health Sciences Award from Shoman Cultural Foundation, during its thirty-fourth session held in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in recognition of his discoveries in the field of genes and genetics.

In 2022, he obtained the Kuwait Prize in the field of basic medical sciences focusing on human genetics, granted by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, in its forty-first session.