Alim Louis Benabid, MD, PhD, obtained his medical degree in 1970 and his PhD in physics in 1978. After a post-doctoral fellowship in the laboratory of pre-clinical neuropharmacology of Floyd Bloom at the Salk Institute (1979-1980), Dr. Benabid was appointed professor at Grenoble University, in neurosurgery and experimental medicine, until 1983, then in neurosurgery and biophysics. From1988 to 2007, he was the director of the research laboratory INSERM unit 318 (pre-clinical neurosciences), and from 1989 to 2007, head of the neurosurgery department at the University Hospital of Grenoble and professor of biophysics at Joseph Fourier University. Dr. Benabid was also coordinator of the Claudio Munari Center for Surgery of Epilepsy and Movement Disorders at Hospital Ni Guardia in Milan, Italy (1998-2007).  He was also staff consultant at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Ohio (2000-2003).

He discovered in 1987 the effects mimicking the lesion induced by electrical stimulation at high frequency, which allowed a rebirth of this surgery and new therapeutic possibilities. 

In 2007, Dr. Benabid joined the French Commission of Atomic Energy as a scientific adviser and is chairman of the board of the new Clinatec Institute (Edmond J Safra Biomedical Research Center), which is devoted to the application of nanotechnologies to neurosciences. Dr. Benabid is a member of the Institut Universitaire de France, of the French Academy of Sciences, of the French Academy of Medicine and of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium. He received  a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the University of Galway, Ireland; from the University of London, Ontario, Canada; from McGill University, Montreal, Quebec; and from the University of Porto, Portugal. He has published 523 scientific papers and his H Index is 67. He has given 18 honorary lectures and received 23 medals and prizes (including the Robert A. Pritzker Prize from MJFF).