Dr. Laura Niedernhofer is the Director of the Masonic Institute on the Biology of Aging & Metabolism (MIBAM) and Medical Discovery Team on the Biology of Aging. She is also a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Niedernhofer’s expertise is in DNA damage and repair, genome instability disorders, cellular senescence and aging. Her research program is centered on studying fundamental mechanisms of aging and developing therapeutics to target them. Her research program implements a murine model of a human progeroid syndrome caused by a defect in DNA repair. She contributed to the discovery of a new class of drugs called senolytics. Laura has served on study section for NCI, NIEHS and NIA. She has been awarded for research in aging, cancer and environmental health science.