Professor Cathy Shanahan

Professor Shanahan was educated in Australia and obtained a PhD in Genetics from the University of Adelaide. She began research in the field of cardiovascular medicine in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Cambridge UK. From 1995-2004 she was a British Heart Foundation Lecturer and in 2005 became a BHF Senior Fellow in the Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge. In 2007 she left Cambridge to take up the Chair of Cellular Signalling in the School of Cardiovascular Medicine and Sciences at King’s College London and is currently Theme Lead for Vascular Biology.

Professor Shanahan’s work focuses on mechanisms of vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) dysfunction in ageing and disease, and she performed pioneering work in the area of vascular calcification. She has published over 150 articles, reviews and book chapters.

Dr Manuel Serrano

Manuel Serrano obtained his PhD in 1991 in Madrid, Spain. In 1993, as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of David Beach at Cold Spring Harbor Lab, NY, USA, he reported the discovery of the gene p16, a key anti-cancer gene and inducer of cellular senescence. From 1997 to 2022, Serrano developed his career in Spain, initially in Madrid and since 2017 in Barcelona. His laboratory has made important contributions to the fields of cellular senescence and cellular reprogramming. In 2023, Serrano moved to Altos Labs in Cambridge, UK, where he continues investigating senescence and reprogramming with the aim of understanding and treating aging and its associated diseases.

Dr Luke Jostins-Dean

Dr Luke Jostins-Dean is Principal Scientist at Nightingale Health UK, and an Associate Professor and group leader at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at the University of Oxford. His work focuses on developing statistical approaches to leverage genetic, metagenomic and metabolomic profiling to understand and predict the onset and progression of common diseases, and on deploying predictive disease models in the clinic.

Professor Cathal McCrory

Professor Cathal McCrory is Professor of Life Course Development and Ageing within the Department of Medical Gerontology at Trinity College Dublin and Co-Principal Investigator of the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). A psychologist by disciplinary background, he is an established inter-disciplinary researcher with prior experience leading large multi-cohort projects of scale. Since 2006, he has been heavily involved with the two flagship longitudinal studies of development (Growing Up in Ireland) and ageing (TILDA) in Ireland, and is also a lead investigator on a pan-European funded project entitled LIFEPATH

His research utilises population-level cohort data to explore social differentials in health and longevity across the life course, applying cutting-edge insights and methodological innovations from the social sciences to the study of biological ageing. Over the past six years, he has been involved with projects securing €31 million in grant income.

Dr Wei Yang

Dr. Wei Yang is a Senior Lecturer in Health Economics and Policy and Director of the Institute of Gerontology at King’s College London. Her research explores how health and ageing policies shape access to care and impact the efficiency of health financing, drawing on longitudinal survey data. She has published extensively in leading academic journals, and her work has played a key role in shaping health and long-term care policies in both China and the UK. Her research is frequently cited by major governmental and international organisations, including the WHO and the World Bank.

Dr Rosie Mayston

Dr Rosie Mayston is a Senior Lecturer in Global Mental Health, in the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine. She is also a Senior Researcher in the Centre for Global Mental Health, Health Service & Population Research Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience.

She is a mixed-methods researcher with a background in anthropology and demography. Her research focuses on mental health and chronic physical illness amongst people living in low and middle-income countries.

Her PhD was in psychiatric epidemiology, focusing on HIV, common mental disorders and access to services in Goa, India. Following her PhD, she developed an interest in broader issues around chronic illness and mental health, in particular, how comorbidity might be best managed and treated to achieve positive physical and mental health outcomes and what systems might be necessary to achieve this.

Dr Mary Ní Lochlainn

Dr Mary Ní Lochlainn is an NIHR Clinical Lecturer at King's College London and a Specialist Registrar in Geriatric, Stroke, and General Internal Medicine.

Her PhD focused on the gut microbiome as a therapeutic target for age-associated morbidity, and she plans to take this work forward in future interventional studies. Her interests lie in prevention and delay of sarcopenia and frailty, aiming to improve the lives of older adults.

Dr Emma Godfrey

Dr Emma Godfrey holds a post across both the Psychology and Physiotherapy Departments at King’s College London. She joined King’s in 2001.

Emma read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford, then went into the theatre for ten years before training as a dramatherapist. She then began her research career and completed her PhD in Psychology at King’s in 2004. Emma is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a HCPC Registered Practitioner Psychologist and Dramatherapist.

Dr Ana Rodriguez-Mateos

Dr Rodriguez-Mateos is a Reader at the Department of Nutritional Sciences of King’s College London. Her research aims to investigate the health benefits of plant foods and phytochemicals, with a strong focus on understanding the bioavailability, metabolism and cardiovascular health benefits of dietary polyphenols. More recent interests include the investigation of the role of the gut microbiome on the health benefits of phytochemicals, and the development of biomarkers of food intake using metabolomic approaches. Her expertise includes development and validation of analytical methods for the analysis of foods and biological samples using LC/GC-MS and performance of randomized controlled trials with cardiovascular outcomes.

She is a Registered Nutritionist, Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry and Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. She is also the Programme Director of the BSc in Nutritional Sciences, an Associate Editor for the Journal Food and Function, member of the Editorial Board of Nutrition and Healthy Aging, and member of the UK and American Nutrition Societies.