She was born in San Vicent del Raspeig, Alicante, in 1965 and she holds a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She was a pupil of Margarita Salas, a pioneering researcher in those fields and she has also worked with Carol W. Greider, who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2009, in the prestigious Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory of New York. Her research has mainly focused on telomeres and telomerase, which are closely linked to the ageing process and the diseases associated with it. As for her professional career in Spain, she joined the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and led a team of researchers at the Department of Immunology and Oncology of the National Centre for Biotechnology. She started working for the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), which she currently heads. She has received national and international awards, such as the Ramón y Cajal National Award for Research or the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Gold Medal for best European researcher under the age of 40.

Pura Muñoz-Cánoves studied Pharmacology at the University of Valencia. She obtained her PhD in Biology at the Madrid Autonomous University for work carried out at The Scripps Research Institute, and did postdoctoral work at the University of California-San Diego and The Scripps Research Institute, and in 1995 she joined the Cancer Research Institute in Barcelona as a postdoc, becoming an independent group leader in 1997. In 2002 her group moved to the Center for Genomic regulation in Barcelona, and she became a senior group leader in 2007 in that Institution. Late 2008 she moved to the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), supported by ICREA, as coordinator of the Cell Biology Unit. At present, she is an ICREA Professor and Cell Biology Professor in the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences at the UPF, and is an EMBO Member. Since May 2016, she holds a double appointment at the Spanish National Cardiovascular Research Center (CNIC) in Madrid.  The main objective of the Muñoz-Cánoves group is to understand the mechanisms regulating stem cell homeostasis and regenerative functions. Research is specially focused on stem cells of skeletal muscle. Recent studies from the laboratory have shed light on 1) age-associated muscle decline and wasting (sarcopenia) and loss of stem-cell regenerative functions with aging; and 2) the physiopathology of muscular dystrophies.

Alvaro Pascual-Leone, M.D., Ph.D., is professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, and director of the Berenson-Allen Center for Brain Stimulation and of the Cognitive Neurology Division of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA, USA. For more than 15 years, Dr Pascual-Leone has been an adviser and collaborator of the Instituto Guttmann in Barcelona and he is scientific director of the Barcelona Brain Health Initiative project financed by La Caixa.

Dr Pascual-Leone is acknowledged as an international reference in the development, research, clinical application and teaching of noninvasive brain stimulation techniques. The main focus of his research is the study of brain plasticity mechanisms and their modulation to prevent impacts and disabilities caused by neuropsychiatric disorders, and to promote life-long brain health and mental wellbeing.

He graduated as a Doctor in Medicine (Cellular Biology programme) from the University of Navarra in 1991, being awarded the Extraordinary PhD Prize. Specialist in Internal Medicine. Master’s Degree in Health Management and Research. Lecturer on Research Methodology and Statistics at the University of Valladolid. Doctor at the San Telmo Hospital in Palencia since 1992 and at the Palencia University Welfare Complex since 2004, being responsible for the Cardiovascular Risk Consultation Service of the Internal Medicine Department. National and international publications (European Heart Journal, Hepatology, Journal of Medical Virology, American Journal of Transplantation, European Journal of Internal Medicine…) on, among other topics, techniques of molecular biology and cardiovascular risk factors, especially on the concept of vascular age and the speed of vascular aging. External reviewer on journals such as the Revista Clínica Española, Revista Española de Cardiología, Medicina Clínica, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health and British Medical Journal. Member of the Working Group on Vascular Risk of the Spanish Society of Internal Medicine and other scientific societies such as the SEH-LELHA and the SEA (Spanish Atherosclerosis Society). 11 entries filed in the Spanish Legal Deposit / Intellectual Property Register.

Dr Silvia Forcano is a specialist in Geriatrics and vice-president of the Valencian Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology. She currently works in the Hospital at Home Unit of the University and Polytechnic Hospital La Fe in Valencia. She has considerable experience in the field of teaching on Geriatric Syndromes and focuses her research on Malnutrition and Sarcopenia in elderly patients with complex chronicity. She has commenced a line of work on Oncogeriatrics, in collaboration with oncology and other specialist departments of La Fe Hospital, for a multidisciplinary approach to decision-making for elderly patients with cancer.

Dr. Barco initiated his scientific career investigating the molecular mechanisms of cytotoxicity by poliovirus at the CBM-SO (Madrid). After defending his thesis (1996), he conducted a brief postdoc in the same lab before moving to Columbia University in New York where he joined the group of Nobel laureate Prof. Kandel to work on the molecular mechanisms of learning and memory. In 2004, he moved to the Instituto de Neurociencias (IN, CSIC-UMH) in Alicante, where he currently holds a tenured position as Profesor de Investigación (Full Professor equivalent) at CSIC. His team investigates the role of activity-driven gene expression and chromatin modifications in neuronal plasticity, learning and memory. Over the last decade, the group made important contributions to the understanding of the relationship between epigenetic marks in the chromatin, gene expression and neuronal plasticity both in physiological conditions and in the context of intellectual disability and neurodegenerative disorders.

Mirka Uhlirova received PhD in 2004 from the University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic, where she established techniques allowing functional genetics in non-model insects. During her postdoctoral time at the University of Rochester, USA, she described the context-dependent roles of stress signaling in tumorigenesis which helped to promote Drosophila melanogaster as a suitable model for cancer research. In 2008, she received the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and joined the CECAD Cluster of Excellence at the University of Cologne, Germany, as an independent group leader. Since 2013, she works there as a full Professor. Her lab investigates how stress signaling pathways orchestrate animal development and tissue homeostasis with focus on stress inducible transcription factors and their roles in the maintenance of epithelial integrity and function and mechanisms underlying interorgan communication in physiological and disease states.

Dr. Andrés holds a PhD in Biology from Universidad de Barcelona. After postdoctoral research in Harvard University (1991-1993) and Tufts University (1993-1995), he was appointed Assistant Professor by Tufts University (1995-2000). He joined in 1999 the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) to establish his research group in the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia. In 2009, he joined the Spanish National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC), where he leads a research team and heads the Department of Basic Research since 2015. His research has focused on cardiovascular disease and the role of lamin A/C in the regulation of gene expression and signal transduction in health and disease, including physiological ageing and Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome. He has received national and international awards, such as the Dr. Leon Dumont Prize 2010 (Belgian Society of Cardiology), and a Progeria Research Foundation (PRF) Innovator Award 2012. Since 2015, he is member of PRF’s Medical Research Committee.

Telecommunications Engineer from the Polytechnics University of Valencia (UPV). He works in the field of radiological image processing and analysis as Technical Director of R&D at Quibim S.L., developing new and innovative image biomarkers and quantification methods that can be easily integrated in the radiological flow.

Santander Bank Scholarship to finance his degree thesis on automatic detection of breast lesions. He is a collaborator of the Biomedical Imaging Research Group (GIBI 230) of the Health Research Institute of the La Fe University and Polytechnics Hospital of Valencia. CPE by Cambridge University in 2015. He has participated in several Horizon 2020 projects of the European Commission. He currently has 8 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and 8 communications in congresses.

She obtained her PhD in industrial engineering from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and now works at the Biomechanics Institute of Valencia, a technology centre that studies the behaviour of the human body and its relationship with the products, environments and services people use. She has extensive experience in the development of products and services designed to consider the functional and cognitive characteristics of elderly people and which incorporate in their design all those aspects that ease their acceptance and use by this population group. She worked as a researcher on national and international projects from 2005 to 2015, when she became head of the Occupational Health and Wellbeing Unit of the Biomechanics Institute, the post she currently holds.