Omar El-Agnaf was awarded a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1997 from the Queen’s University Belfast, UK. He worked as post-doctoral scientist at the Queen’s University Belfast and St. George’s Medical School in London, from 1997 to 2000. In 2001, he was awarded a research fellowship from the Parkinson’s Disease Society-UK to establish his research group at Lancaster University. In 2004, he joined the Faculty of Medicine at UAE University. In September 2014 he joined HBKU at Qatar Foundation.

Elucidating the mechanism of protein aggregation and deposition of and their potential link to neurodegeneration and cell loss; Screening for small natural molecules as potential novel therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases; Discovering novel biological markers for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease; Developing novel immunoassays for diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases, particularly in their early stages; Developing conformation-specific monoclonal antibodies for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease pathology for use in dissecting the pathogenic mechanisms, developing novel diagnosis and vaccines for neurodegenerative disorders; Developing novel MRI- and PET-imaging compounds for Parkinson’s disease. These projects are supported and funded by several international funding agencies and pharmaceutical companies, including Qatar National Research Foundation (Doha, Qatar), Parkinson’s disease Foundation (NY, USA), Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (NY, USA); Lundbeck A/S (Copenhagen, Denmark); Weston Brain Institute (Canada) and Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (NY, USA).