Shahlo Turdikulova elected vice-president of the World Academy of Sciences TWAS

Election to the TWAS leadership

Vice-President of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor Shahlo Turdikulova has been elected vice-president of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) for Central and South Asia for 2027–2028. This was reported by the press service of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, as covered by Gazeta.uz. The decision was made based on a vote by TWAS members. Turdikulova will join the academy's council as one of six vice-presidents and will take office on 1 January 2027. The new TWAS council will be led by the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hou Jianguo.

First representative of the region in the academy's leadership

According to the Academy of Sciences, Turdikulova has become the first representative of Uzbekistan and all of Central Asia in the TWAS leadership in the academy's entire history. As a member of the council, she will take part in defining the academy's strategic directions, developing international scientific cooperation and supporting researchers. The Academy of Sciences noted that Turdikulova's election «opens additional opportunities for advancing the scientific initiatives of Uzbekistan and Central Asia, expanding research partnerships and enabling young scientists of the region to take part in international programmes». She became a member of the World Academy of Sciences in 2025, and in October 2025 she received her TWAS academician diploma.

Who is Shahlo Turdikulova

Shahlo Turdikulova was born in 1973 in Tashkent and graduated from Mirzo Ulugbek National University of Uzbekistan in 1995. She is a Doctor of Biological Sciences, a professor and a holder of the Dustlik order. According to her page on the TWAS website, she received a PhD in biotechnology (2001) and a doctoral degree in biochemistry and cell biology (2008), and from 2002 to 2005 she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her scientific work is related to studying the genetics of Central Asian populations and developing biotechnology in Uzbekistan: under her leadership, the first domestic PCR test system for detecting COVID-19 and the Uzbek-Chinese vaccine ZF-UZ-VAC 2001 were developed. According to the Uzbek-language version of Gazeta.uz, she also identified 1,450 genetic markers associated with 670 genes of disease predisposition and created a national DNA bank with 24,000 samples.

Career and significance of the election

From October 2020 to April 2021, Turdikulova served as First Deputy Minister of Innovative Development, then from April 2021 to January 2023 as deputy minister, after which she worked as deputy minister of higher education, science and innovations until April 2024. She currently holds the post of vice-president of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan. TWAS is an international academy founded in 1983 to promote science in developing countries; it brings together more than 1,400 scientists from over 100 countries, including 11 Nobel Prize laureates. The election of a representative of Uzbekistan to the TWAS council means that from 2027 the country will have direct representation in the body that determines the academy's strategic directions, which, according to the Academy of Sciences' own assessment, expands opportunities for the region's scientific initiatives and for young scientists' participation in international programmes.