Dr. Simona S. Ghanem obtained a Bachelor of Science in Biology and completed her Master of Science in Human Morphology at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. During her Masters, she studied the relationship of certain genes expression in regards to inflammatory bowel disease in an animal model of Sprague Dawley rats. She then went on to work on several interesting projects mainly investigating genes associated with autism in the Lebanese population. Dr. Ghanem completed her PhD in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Toledo, Ohio, USA. As part of her doctoral studies, she primarily focused and explored the mechanisms underlying insulin resistance, obesity, and insulin action in animal models. During her doctoral period, she was awarded a fellowship from the Middle-East Diabetes Research Center (MEDRC). Dr. Ghanem is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Neurological Disorders Research Center at Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI), HBKU.