A physician and strategist in research and innovation.

She serves as Professor and Pathologist-in-Chief, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Tufts Medical Center and the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, while also leading the Department of Pathology across the Tufts Medicine Organization. In addition, she is a Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery and President of Pratt Pathology Associates, Inc. Her roles extend to multiple research and advisory memberships in both the United States and Saudi Arabia.

She has served as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in the United States of America since 2020. She has also been a member of the Board of Directors of the Sanad Charitable Society for Supporting Children with Cancer since 2020, a member of the Advisory Board of the MIT Technology Review Arabia platform since 2018, a member of the Saudi Leadership Council of the Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Charitable Foundation (MiSK ), and a member of the Scientific Council of Alumina Company in the Gulf since 2022. She is a leader in the Leaders 2030 Program at the Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Charitable Foundation (MiSK), and a Win Fellow for Women Entrepreneurship from the Atlantic Council and Georgetown University for the year 2023-2024.

Before joining Tufts, she held several positions at Emory University in Atlanta, including Director of Neuropathology and Molecular Pathology Fellowship, Professor at the university’s School of Medicine, and Researcher at the Winship Cancer Institute.

She served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Cancer Research Support Foundation between November 2021 and March 2024. She also held several positions at King Fahad Medical City between 2014 and 2022, including Director of Research Facilities Management, Head of the Genomics Research Department, Founding Director of the Saudi Genome Program Laboratory, Principal Investigator of the Saudi Genome, and Consultant Physician specializing in molecular genetics and neuropathology.

She has more than 140 scientific papers published in leading international scientific journals, such as Nature, Clinical Investigation, Clinical Oncology, and Neuro-Oncology, in addition to numerous book chapters in the field of pathology. She is also an international author of the World Health Organization's 2021-2022 classification of brain tumors and pediatric tumors.

She founded CID-Igen, an oncology company, in 2016. It was the first non-US company to be supported by the Illumina accelerator in San Francisco. She also founded Shomool, a gene technology company that won the Dammam Technology Valley Award and the Future Investment Initiative in 2022. She served as Director of Research and Innovation at the King Salman Center for Disability Research between September and December 2021. She has held several positions at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, including: General Supervisor at the General Administration for National Coordination of Research, Development, and Innovation between August 2020 and May 2022, Associate Research Professor between 2020 and 2022, Assistant Professor between 2016 and 2020, Deputy General Supervisor for Support and Grants in 2020, and Leader of the Personalized Medicine Team at the 2020 Science Summit.

She also served as Medical Director of the Saudi Diagnostic Laboratory at King Faisal Specialist Hospital International Holding Company between 2018 and 2019. She was a faculty member, researcher, and consultant physician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a faculty member at Harvard University between 2015 and 2019, and a part-time associate physician in neurology and molecular genetics at Brigham and Women's Hospital in the United States during the same period.

She was a chief resident at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., from 2009 to 2010, a molecular genetics fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine in 2013, a surgical oncology fellow at the same university in 2012, a neuropathology fellow at Harvard University in 2014, and a research fellow at Tufts University in 2006.

She was selected as a member of the jury for the MIT Technology Review's "Innovators Under 35" award in 2019, 2020, and 2021. She was also selected as one of the 100 Most Powerful People in Pathology by The Pathologist magazine in 2018, 2019, and 2021. She was selected as one of the "40 Under 40" list by the American Society of Clinical Pathology in 2021. In 2022, she was selected to represent the American Association of Neuropathologists at the International Society for Neuroscience for a three-year term.

She also won the Makkah Award for Scientific and Technical Excellence in 2016, the ASO-MIT Young Scientist Award in 2015, and the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology's Distinguished Scientist Award in 2022. She is the only Arab woman nominated for the Nature Scientific Achievement Award in 2020.

She received her Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2015, the American Board of Neuropathology in 2015, and the American Board of Clinical Pathology and Anatomy in 2011.

She holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Johns Hopkins University in the United States of America (2007), an Executive Certificate in Health Administration from Johns Hopkins University in the United States of America, a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from King Abdulaziz University , a number of executive certificates from the School of Business Administration and the School of Public Health at Harvard University during the years 2017-2020, and an Executive Certificate in Public Policy and Governance from the Kennedy School at Harvard University in 2021.
 

Read articles by Dr. Malak Abed Al-Thaqafi on the MIT Technology Review platform:

• Promising advances in CRISPR technology pave the way for the development of personalized treatments .
• The Future of Healthcare: How will the COVID-19 Pandemic Change Healthcare in the Coming Decades?
• The Lunar Exploration Mindset: 4 Strategies for Seeing the World Through an Exponential Lens .
• How are technology companies shaping the future of healthcare?
• Genomics: Revolutionizing the Understanding of Diseases and the Delivery of Medical Care .