Meet the Scientist – Dr. Sulaiman Marafie

Published on 10/10/2022

DR. SULAIMAN MARAFIE

Meet the scientists behind DDI’s research

DR. SULAIMAN MARAFIE graduated from Kuwait University with a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology and went on to pursue his postgraduate degree in the United Kingdom. He obtained his master’s degree in Cancer Cell & Molecular Biology from the University of Leicester, which was followed by a PhD in Cell Biology from the University of Manchester. He was awarded the 1st prize in the university’s annual PhD Symposium in 2013. He joined DDI in 2014 and currently holds the position of a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

His main research focuses on establishing novel players in the mTOR and insulin signaling pathways, two main drivers of insulin resistance and diabetes, under lipotoxic conditions using pancreatic β-cell line models. His first publication at DDI suggested a novel regulatory role of FFAR1 in insulin resistance that might interact with mTOR signaling under lipotoxic conditions. The data was presented at the Diabetes Asia Conference 2019 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) and won the 1st prize for the Best Poster Award.