Professor Dr Raja Affendi Raja Ali graduated from the National University of Ireland (NUI) with an honours degree in medicine in 2000 (M.B., B.Ch., B.A.O.),  completed internship, senior house officer and registrar training at the University Hospital Galway and its affiliated teaching hospitals in Ireland. He obtained Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) of Ireland and Edinburgh (MRCP, UK) in 2004, and completed a Masters in Medical Science (M.Med.Sc) from NUI in 2004.

From 2004 to 2009, he underwent training as a Clinical Specialist Registrar in the fields of internal medicine, gastroenterology & hepatology at the various teaching hospitals in Ireland. Subsequently, he was awarded the Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training (CCST) by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. He further obtained a Higher Diploma in clinical teaching at the NUI, and also completed his research on the link between inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer and was conferred a Doctorate of Medicine (MD) degree at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Regenerative Medicine, NUI.

He proceeded to undertake a position as a Consultant Physician and Gastroenterologist at the University Hospital Galway, where he studied and worked for two decades in Ireland before returning to Malaysia to take up a post as a Consultant Physician, Gastroenterologist, and Associate Professor in Medicine at the faculty of medicine, The National University of Malaysia (UKM), Kuala Lumpur in March 2013.

Since that time, Professor Dr Raja Affendi has - as a principle investigator - been awarded numerous research grants by UKM, Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education, pharmaceutical industries and international professional societies. His research interest focuses on inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, colorectal cancer, and gut microbiome, where the research grants have an accumulative value of more than RM20 million.

He has supervised and co-supervised 39  Clinical & Non-Clinical Masters students and 9 PhD students. Raja Affendi served as the President for the Malaysian Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology as well as the Congress President for the Asia Pacific Digestive Week in 2020.

Currently, he serves as a Secretary-General for the Asia Pacific Association of Gastroenterology, Education Committee Member for the Asian Organization for Crohn’s and Colitis, and Clinical Research Committee Member for the World Gastroenterological Organization.

Professor Dr Raja Affendi is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCP) and the American Gastroenterological Association (AGAF) and member of the Academy of Medicine (AMM), Malaysia. He was selected to participate in the management and leadership courses; Emerging Stars Program sponsored by the World Endoscopy Organization and the International Deans’ Course sponsored by the German Academic Exchange. He also obtained a professional certificate after completing an Oxford Executive Leadership Program (OELP) at The Said Business School, University of Oxford. He was also conferred with an honours degree for Masters of Business Administration (MBA) by the the International University Malaya-Wales in 2022.

He served as the Dean for the Faculty of Medicine, UKM from March 2019 to March 2022 and delivered an inaugural lecture entitled "The latest treatments and high-impact research directions for inflammatory bowel disease in Malaysia".