Dr Airina is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University Malaya. She earned both her Bachelor of Science (Biochemistry) and Master of Science (Lipid Biochemistry) degree from University Malaya in 2003 and 2008 respectively. In 2013, she graduated from University of Cambridge, United Kingdom with a PhD in Pharmacology. Her PhD thesis work focuses on magnetoreception. A study on how animals having the ability to detect the Earth’s magnetic field whereby her research was to understand the cellular basis and the mechanism underlying the single domain magnetite of magnetoreceptor cells in fish.

Her research interests include looking at the uses of natural products especially form Traditional Malaysian plants as an alternative medicine. She is interested in investigating the phytochemistry, molecular biology of medicinal plants and bioassays activity of natural products.

Her current research includes the study of various traditional plants that help to reduce hypertension, lowering blood sugar level and oxidative stress. This is an important area to explore as there is still a general lack of knowledge and much misinformation remain about natural products in plants and their uses by people. Besides that, her research interest includes the study of proteolytic enzymes and anti-inflammatory activities of the Butterfly leaf, Christia vespertilionis. Dr Airina is also looking at venturing into projects which involves anti-cancer properties from medicinal plants.

Besides doing research, she is teaching undergraduates students of Biohealth Program, Institute of Biological Science, Faculty of Science, University Malaya. Her core teaching subjects includes Pharmacology, Drug Analysis and Analytical Biochemistry. Besides that, she has been teaching various Laboratory courses due to her expertise in Biochemistry. On top of that, Dr Airina has supervised more than 15 undergraduate students for their final year projects and currently supervising and co-supervising up to 4 graduate students. She is the Principal investigator for a research grant and a Co-PI of a research collaborating with MAHSA university. She has authored and co-authored more then 5 research papers with a number of conference proceedings.

She was also appointed as the Secretary and fellow of the Fifth Residential college and has been a residential college fellow for almost 10 years. She is dedicated towards helping students to improve in their soft skills abilities and to expose students towards community engagement programs. Dr Airina is the fellow advisor for various established programs such as the Education Malaysia (EDUMAS), Malaysian Blood Donation (NBD) and other community engagement programs.