Associate Professor Phillippa Taberlay is an epigeneticist and molecular biologist, a NHMRC Indigenous Emerging Leadership Research Fellow, and Lead of the Cancer & Genomics Theme at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, Tasmania. Her laboratory investigates the epigenetic mechanisms of brain ageing, cognition, behaviour and failure of epigenetic systems in neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and brain tumours. A key focus of the lab is the role of three-dimensional organisation of the genome as a critical factor in maintaining normal epigenetic activity in the brain, including innovative techniques developed in her laboratory to study multiple epigenetic simultaneously from precious human brain tissue samples. With this technical capability, her laboratory has been able to show that neurons are particularly vulnerable to epigenetic changes across ageing. This has enabled exciting new opportunities to pursue the discoveries needed to improve healthspan in the neurosciences.