Afaf studied chemistry in Egypt and did her PhD at Southampton University then moved back to Egypt to become a lecturer then Professor at Suez University. She was a Research Fellow at Southampton university from 2006-2013 followed by a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University from 2013-2022 working with Professor Tom Brown. She is currently an assistant professor at Southampton University working in the area of therapeutic oligonucleotides and modified mRNA and their delivery. Afaf has expertise in therapeutic oligonucleotides, sequencing, biophysical, biochemical and cell studies. She has pioneered click chemistry and other synthetic methods to assemble novel, long and modified biocompatible DNA/RNA constructs for custom gene synthesis/editing and their applications in biology and medicine. Some of the reagents she developed are commercially available from Glen Research and the work was highlighted on National DNA Day and in research outreach.
She has more than 180 publications including high impact factor journals, patents and book chapters with H-index 44 (Google Scholar). She was invited to give talks in UK, Europe, USA and China.