Esther Wong graduated from the National University of Singapore with her PhD in 2004. She is an Assistant Professor with the School of Biological Sciences at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Her research focuses on autophagy, a cellular quality control pathway involved in protein degradation by lysosomes. The overall goal is to elucidate yet unknown mechanisms in the degradation of proteins by autophagy and how the related defects result in accumulation of damaged components, proteotoxicity and loss of cognitive functions associated with neurodegeneration and aging.