Muzlifah Haniffa is a Malaysian dermatologist and immunologist who focuses on the development of the immune system and the use of single-cell techniques to understand biology.

Haniffa is a professor and Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle University.

[3][2][4] Professor Chris Day, serving as vice-chancellor of the medical faculty, congratulated Haniffa on her achievement, saying:[4] Professor Haniffa is one of the outstanding clinician scientists of her generation and has rapidly, in her short career, established an international reputation in her fieldHaniffa's work on the immune system has included discovering that a population of what was considered dendritic cells (defined by the presence of CD14) in human skin were in fact macrophages, and studies demonstrating that a subset of dendritic cells exist in mice which can activate T helper 17 cells against a fungal infection.

[12][13][14] This was followed by a single-cell study of the placenta which discovered new cell sub-types in the decidua, informing understanding of how the maternal and fetal immune systems interact with each other and avoid miscarriage or pre-eclampsia.

[18][19][20][21] In 2019 the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced that it was investing $68 million in grants into furthering the Human Cell Atlas, including awards for Haniffa to study the immune system and liver during ageing in single-cell detail.