Dr Anita Lim completed her BSc in pharmacology and MSc in clinical pharmacology at the University of Auckland (New Zealand). She completed a PhD in cancer epidemiology under the supervision of Professors Peter Sasieni and Usha Menon (UCL) at Queen Mary University of London. Her thesis explored the potential for using symptoms to bring forward the diagnosis of ovarian cancer.

After her Phd, she led a project on delays in diagnosis of young women with cervical cancer at the Promoting Early Presentation Group, King's College London. From 2012-2017, she returned to Professor Sasieni's group at Queen Mary University where she worked on studies of cervical cancer screening and prevention in the Centre for Cancer Prevention (Head Prof Jack Cuzick), Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine.

In 2018, Dr Lim moved with Professor Peter Saseini's research group to King's (Cancer Prevention Group). She currently leads the Experimental epidemiology branch of the group which specialises in conducting clinical and experimental epidemiological studies in cancer screening. Research studies comprise mostly investigations of novel screening technologies with a particular focus on non-speculum approaches for cervical screening.