Professor/ Dr. Al-Aqeel graduated from Kuwait University, Kuwait with MD in Medicine and Surgery, BSc in Biochemistry with Honors; obtained the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physician of London and Edinburgh, 1994.  Has three fellowships in Genetics including Clinical Genetics, Biochemical Genetics (Metabolic), and Molecular Genetics; obtained the American Board of Medical Genetics in 1999. Has been awarded several awards including, the Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Federation of Medical Research, February 2002. Science Award from the European Society of Human Genetics, May 2005, the Outstanding Physician Award from the 10^th International Congress of Inborn Errors of Metabolism, Chiba, Japan, Sept 2006 in the presence of HRH Prince Narohito the Crown Prince of Japan. She was honored at the House of Commons, United Kingdom, as one of the distinctive international speakers, July 2007. Awarded the Distinction Medal by HRH Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia 2008; the Distinctive Arab Female Scientist Prize by the Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain, May 2009; the King Faisal Distinction Wissam by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullaha Bin AbdulAziz January 2010; the Prince Sultan International Award for Pioneers of Saudi Medical Innovations and Creativity, October 2010; the Excellence award for pioneers in Medical Genetic in Saudi Arabia from the Saudi medical genetic society 2014; and Pioneering Women in Health Sciences from the Prince of Riyadh February 2018.

As a clinician Professor/Dr. Al-Aqeel is the first Saudi Geneticist and Metabolist in Saudi Arabia. For the last 30 years she has founded and established both the clinical and laboratory services for inherited Neurometabolic Genetic Disorders at the Prince Sultan Military Medical City, She is currently following approximately 2,000 patients with various genetic disorders.  Her service is the second referral service in the Kingdom for various hospitals in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Countries and other parts of the World. She has described several new Saudi variants of neurometabolic genetic disorders, found the molecular defect, and described new modalities for treating them; this work was published in Nature Genetics, Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Lancet among others, She also has established and founded with other colleagues the newborn screening pilot program in Saudi Arabia.