Gurzadyan was born in 1922 in Baghdad, to parents that survived the Armenian Genocide. Upon graduating from the Hydrotechnical and Constructional Department of Yerevan Polytechnic Institute in 1944, he became a graduate student of Victor Ambartsumian, who had just moved to Armenia. Being in Ambartsumian’s founding team of Byurakan Observatory, he later headed a Laboratory, in 1960s became deputy director of the Observatory for space research.