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).