Dr. Chua is Associate Professor in Medicine and Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at Stanford University. She received her B.A. in Biochemistry from Harvard University and her MD and PhD from the Harvard MSTP. Dr. Chua’s research focuses on mechanisms of chromatin and nuclear signaling, and how de-regulation of these mechanisms contribute to aging and disease. During her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Chua and colleagues were among the first to study the mammalian SIRT6 and SIRT7 genes and made the seminal discovery that SIRT6 prevents genomic instability and many degenerative pathologies in mice. In her own lab at Stanford, Dr. Chua pioneered novel biochemical and proteomic approaches to uncover the enzymatic activities of SIRT6 and SIRT7 as highly selective histone deacetylases. These discoveries opened up the field; they spurred explorations into chromatin and gene regulation by SIRT6 and SIRT7 and prompted investigations into novel substrates of these enzymes. The impact of the Chua lab’s work in this area is manifest from the many studies that followed upon and depended heavily on their early findings. Dr. Chua’s lab went on to discover numerous functions and mechanisms of SIRT6 in preventing genomic instability, telomere dysfunction, DNA damage, heterochromatin deregulation, cellular senescence and aging-related gene networks. In their SIRT7 studies, they identified new functions of SIRT7 in regulating epigenetic oncogenic programs, tumor growth and metastasis, and metabolic homeostasis. Dr. Chua has also had a longstanding focus on uncovering underlying mechanisms of cellular senescence and their contributions to aging and disease. Her recent work identified novel triggers of senescence that are regulated by SIRT6 and SIRT7, including pathogenic transcription of pericentromeric DNA and genomic instability at ribosomal DNA sequences. Thus, Dr. Chua’s work has had a broad impact on research at the intersection of aging, cancer, and chromatin biology.