In parallel to my clinical activities, my research started in Paris and covered different aspects of critical illnesses. In Saudi Arabia, I was asked to work in Mecca during the pilgrimage in the desert climate Mecca in July 1986, where I witnessed the deaths of hundreds of patients with heatstroke in a few days. This experience has shifted my research focus to heat illnesses, particularly heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Since then, I have acquired a unique clinical experience managing patients with heat illnesses. I have also conducted translational research, including randomized clinical trials, developing a nonhuman primate heatstroke model, and testing novel therapeutic targets. I have also performed systematic reviews and metanalysis that served as the framework for the WHO's current preventive public health strategy. The findings of this research were recapitulated in a review paper in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002 and, more recently, in Nature Reviews Primer diseases in 2022. Stanford University has ranked me in the top 2% of the most cited researcher in 2021.