Weiping Zheng received a Ph.D. in 1999 in medicinal chemistry from University of Tennessee, USA; and was a postdoctoral research fellow (1999-2002) and a research associate (2002-2004) both specialized in the bioorganic chemistry of enzymes at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA; and was the James L. and Martha J. Foght Assistant Professor in biochemistry at the chemistry department of University of Akron, USA (2004-2011). Since 2012, the author has been a professor at the pharmacy school of Jiangsu University, China. One theme of the author's research interests has been on the chemical biology and medicinal chemistry of the de-modification enzymes of the epigenetically and biomedically important post-translational modifications, such as the sirtuin family of the protein lysine deacylase enzymes. The author's research group has published 45 peer-reviewed scientific papers including those published in top-notch scientific journals such as Cancer Cell and Chemical Society Reviews. The author was invited to edit the 154^th volume on Sirtuins in Health and Disease for Elsevier's Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science, which was published in February, 2018. In addition, the author has authored a book entitled "Active site-directed enzyme inhibitors: design concepts" published in September, 2023 also by Royal Society of Chemistry, which can be regarded as a sister piece of the current book.