Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado

Sánchez Alvarado received a BS in molecular biology and chemistry from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, and a PhD in pharmacology and cell biophysics from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Cincinnati, OH. He performed postdoctoral and independent research at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Department of Embryology in Baltimore, MD. In 2002, he joined the faculty of the University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City where he held the H.A. & Edna Benning Presidential Endowed Chair. In 2005, he was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He joined the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City in 2011 and became the President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Stowers Institute in 2022. He also holds the Priscilla Wood Neaves Chair in the Biomedical Sciences.
Sánchez Alvarado is an elected member of the National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Latin American Academy of Sciences, a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences USA, a Fellow of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a recipient of a National Institutes of Health MERIT award, the EE Just Medal for Scientific Achievement, and the Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Sciences. He has served on numerous scientific advisory committees and boards including the National Advisory Council of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health, and presently serves on the Board of Directors of American Century Investments.
Sánchez Alvarado’s work has the potential to lead to a better understanding of how the adult forms of higher organisms, including humans, carry out their biological functions. His research also has led to insights on the molecular and genetic drivers of both regenerative and degenerative cellular processes that contribute to disease.