Professor Malik Zaben, Professor of Neurosurgery and Neurosciences, qualified a Doctor of Medicine from the First School of Medicine in Palestine at Al-Quds University, Jerusalem and where he also worked as a Research and Teaching Assistant in the Department of Anatomy before he left for the United Kingdom for his PhD study. His principal research interests developed in the field of neural stem cells, adult neurogenesis and repair. He completed his PhD programme in neuropeptide-modulation of hippocampal neurogenesis, at the University of Southampton, UK, in 2007, and conducted original research in defining control mechanisms involved in hippocampal neurogenesis. From 2007 on and as part of his postdoctoral research, he developed a new adult human brain ex-vivo 3D organotypic culture system. Using this model, he has demonstrated the role of the microenvironment in reduced hippocampal neurogenesis in patients with chronic temporal lobe epilepsy. He won the prize for the best paper presentation at the annual joint meeting of the British and European Neurosurgical Research Group Meeting twice in a row for the years 2008 and 2009, at Royal Station Hotel, Newcastle and Kings College Hospital, London respectively. He then won the first prize in life sciences for the year 2010 from the Medical, Health and Life Sciences School, University of Southampton.

In addition, Prof Zaben passed the UK General Medical Council exams and was appointed as a Clinical and Research Fellow of Neurosurgery at Wessex Neurological Centre at Southampton Hospital in August 2009. He gained Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2011. In April 2012, he was granted a prestigious Epilepsy Research(UK) Clinical Training and Research Fellowship and has now joined the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Cardiff and the Neurosurgery Department at Heath Hospital in Wales. 

All through these years, Prof Zaben has devoted virtually all his free time to his country of origin, Palestine. Since 2007, he joined the International Medical Education Trust (IMET2000) initially as a member. He then worked with the then CEO Professor Green to gain funding for the establishment of the first “Continuing Health Sciences Education Centre” in Palestine.  In 2009, Prof Zaben was appointed as the Director of the Health Sciences Education Centre with its own website badged as IMET2000-Pal. He then chaired the first “Palestine Health Education Group” which now is taking the lead to develop the IMET2000-Pal programme of continuing health education in Palestine.  Since September 2012, Prof Zaben has been in overall charge of IMET2000 as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) with virtually full focus on continuing health education in Palestine. He has also been appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the Arab American University of Palestine since February 2023.