[4] Her father was a cardiologist who was involved in the first coronary artery bypass surgery to take place in Malaysia.

[4] She moved to the Wellcome Sanger Institute in 2009, where she started doctoral research[6] using whole genome sequencing to better understand breast cancer.

[citation needed] In 2017 Nik-Zainal moved to the University of Cambridge, supported by a Cancer Research UK Advanced Clinician Scientist fellowship.

Nik-Zainal looks to identify mutational signatures in human cancers and the aetiologies that give rise to them.

[10] Nik-Zainal has continued to develop computational approaches to identify DNA damage in tumours, insight into which can help to determine the most effective treatment in cancer patients.