Alea A. Mills

Alea A. Mills is Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Member of its Cancer Center. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Irvine in 1997. Her research investigates genetic pathways in cancer, aging, and autism, focusing on how gene expression controls impact human disease.

Mills pioneered chromosome engineering techniques to identify disease mechanisms, including discovering that deletion of a 27-gene cluster on chromosome 16 causes autism-like features in mice. She identified CHD5 as a critical tumor suppressor gene that regulates cancer-preventing networks through epigenetic mechanisms. Her lab studies p63 proteins regulating development, tumorigenesis, and aging.

Research themes include:

• Epigenetic regulation in cancer
• Neural development and autism
• Tumor suppressor networks
• Stem cell reprogramming

Her honors include Woman of the Year in Health/Medicine (2012). Recent publications focus on chromatin remodeling in glioblastoma, cancer stem cell phenotypes, and synaptic deficits in autism models. Mills leads the Animal Shared Resource facility, supporting cancer research models.