Prof Alain Hovnanian studied medicine at the school of Paris XII University from 1977 to 1983. In 1993, he identified COL7A1 encoding type VII collagen as the defective gene for recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB) and completed his PhD at Paris VII University on the molecular aspects of inherited DEB.

Since 2009, he has been Professor of Genetics in the department of Genetics at Necker Hospital for Sick Children in Paris. He runs a translational clinic on genetic skin diseases of children and adults aimed at fostering translation of research into new treatments for orphan diseases. His laboratory is one of the founding teams of the IMAGINE Institute for genetic diseases which opened in 2014 in Paris.