Academician Padilla is Professor of Pediatrics and Chancellor of the University of the Philippines Manila, the health sciences campus of the University of the Philippines. Dr. Padilla is a pioneer in genetics in the Philippines and the Asia Pacific region. In the Philippines, she is responsible for setting up the clinical genetic services at the national university hospital, the Philippine General Hospital in 1990 and the various genetic laboratories now housed at the Institute of Human Genetics – National Institutes of Health (www.ihg.upm.edu.ph) .  She is also responsible for setting up of national newborn screening services in the Philippines in 1996, currently available in 6000+ health facilities in the country.  In the Asia Pacific region, she is part of the pioneering group that established the Asia Pacific Society for Human Genetics and she served as president in 2008-2010.  Professor Padilla is Council Member of the Human Genome Organization, an international organization of scientists from 69 countries (www.hugo-international.org). She is Vice-President and Treasurer of the International Society for Neonatal Screening, an international organization of newborn screening professionals, academics, parent support groups from 70 countries (http://www.isns-neoscreening.org/). She was appointed country representative to the InterAcademy Medical Panel (IAMP) in 2010 and then represented National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) as elected member of the IAMP Executive Committee from 2013-2016.Dr. Padilla has been a recipient of numerous awards. Among her recent awards are: Distinguished Award for Health Education, University of the Philippines Alumni Association (2014); 100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World given by US based Female Women’s Network (2013);  Most Outstanding Pediatrician (2013); Outstanding Science Administrator Award  (2012) in recognition of  20 years of pioneering efforts such as the introduction and institutionalization of Newborn Screening Services and the establishment of Genetic Services and Research in the country.
Dr. Padilla has more than 100 publications (original articles, chapters in textbook and non-texbooks, training modules, etc).  In the area of policy making, she is responsible for the Newborn Screening Act of 2004 (Republic Act 9228) and the Rare Disease Act (Republic Act 10747). She is actively engaged in preparing policy statements for the Philippine Pediatrics Society and she is finalizing the draft bill on folic acid supplementation and fortification. Dr. Padilla is a graduate of BS Pre-Medicine in UP Diliman cum laude (1976),  BS Medicine in UP College of Medicine, UP Manila (1981); MA in Health Policy Studies at the College of Public Health, UP Manila (2005). She took pediatric residency at the Philippine General Hospital and pursued a fellowship in Clinical Genetics at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sydney, Australia.