Manuel Serrano obtained his PhD in 1991, from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.  From 1991 to 1996, Serrano worked in the team of David Beach in Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY.  During this period, Serrano made his most important discovery with the identification and characterization of the gene p16, one of the most important genes for anti-cancer protection.  Serrano returned to Spain in 1997 to lead a research group, first at the National Center of Biotechnology (CNB), and then, from 2003 to 2017, at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), both in Madrid.  In 2017, Serrano moved to the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB), in Barcelona.

Manuel Serrano is internationally recognized in the field of tumor suppression.  In addition to the discovery of p16, one of his main discoveries has been the identification of cellular senescence as a main anti-oncogenic response. Recently, his laboratory has also shown that cellular senescence participates in several tissue remodeling processes during embryo development. The Serrano team was pioneer in the generation of genetically-modifed mice resistant to cancer and found a link between tumor suppressor genes and aging.

In recent years, the research interests of Manuel Serrano have extended to metabolism and cellular reprogramming in relation to aging.  The Serrano laboratory was first in demonstrating that cellular reprogramming into pluripotency is possible within an organism, and this discover was considered Advance of the Year 2013 by Nature Medicine. More recently, Serrano has reported in Science that in vivo reprogramming is enhanced by the coexistence of tissue injury thanks to the production of the interleukin IL-6. The focus of his laboratory is now to apply their knowledge on senescence and reprogramming to degenerative diseases such as lung, kidney and heart fibrosis.

Manuel Collado holds a PhD in Biology from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Having previously worked in London, New York and at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) in Madrid, he is currently the Miguel Servet Researcher at the Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS) where he manages the Cancer and Aging Stem Cell Laboratory. He publishes information on biomedical research into aging in the blog “Fuente de la Eterna Juventud”

In 2003 she received a European PhD degree from the Department of Physiology of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Valencia. During her PhD, she did a pre-doctoral stay in London at The Centre for Cardiovascular Biology and Medicine in the King’s College of London- During that period she also studied how glutathione is able to modulate telomerase activity, to modify cell cycle related protein expression, and to alter the normal rhythm of cell proliferation. Then she did a post-doctoral stay in the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) in Madrid led by the specialist in telomerase and telomeres María A. Blasco She was also interested in studying new genes related to longevity in collaboration with Dr. Manuel Serrano. In 2005, she joined the Catholic University of Valencia as lecturer, and was in charge of the PhD programme. In 2008, she came back to the University of Valencia and in 2011, she became full professor at the Department of Physiology. Currently, she is interested in factors conferring extreme longevity to centenarians and, together with her research group, she has already found that they are exceptionally well regulated at the mRNA level by microRNAs. Her second line of research is the study of stem cells as a useful tool to regenerate aged tissues.

Mari Carmen Gómez Cabrera gained her doctorate from the Department of Physiology of the University of Valencia in 2004 and received a thesis award. She has done 4 stays in foreign centres (The University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Liverpool and the University of Minnesota), where she worked in research groups on skeletal muscle, free radicals and physical exercise. She started working as a teacher in 2000 and is currently a full professor at the Physiology Department of the University of Valencia. Her research covers the study oxidative stress associated with physical exercise and the signalling role of reactive oxygen species in skeletal muscle. She has published more than 90 scientific papers, she is a regular contributor to prestigious international journals and has directed 13 doctoral theses. Her total number of citations is 4,000 and her h-index is 30. She has participated in 25 national research projects (5 of them as Principal Investigator) and 4 European research projects. The recognition of her research work has resulted in international research awards, such as the Catherine Pasquier Award (awarded by the Society for Free Radical Research Europe) and national awards such as the García Blanco Medal.

Born in 1953, José Viña is Professor of Physiology at the University of Valencia. He obtained his PhD at Valencia University in 1976 and has honoris causa doctorates from the University of Rennes (France) and the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina). Once he had finished his degree in Medicine at the University of Valencia in 1974, José Viña started biomedical investigation at the Medical Research Council of the University of Oxford, which at that time was run by the Nobel Laureate, Hans Krebs. Subsequently, he worked as professor of Physiology at the University of Extremadura. In 1984, he was designated professor at the Department of Physiology of the University of Valencia. He has published over 330 international papers and has received several honours, including the Albert Struyvenberg medal awarded by the European Society for Clinical Investigation (ESCI) 2017, for leadership in research in ageing and exercise. He is also the author of the book “Cuídese hoy para que no le cuidemos mañana: cómo vivir para envejecer mejor” (2009). José Viña specialises in nutrition and exercise and their application in healthy ageing. He has been leading a successful research group dealing with nutritional aspects, with longevity and, more recently, with frailty and Alzheimer’s disease.

He holds a PhD in Biology and he is a Professor of Genetics at the University of Valencia. His research focuses on molecular genetics and genomic applied to medicine. He is known for his outreach work. He is the author of more than 50 research papers on his field of expertise, including three articles published by the prestigious journal Nature. As a scientific entrepreneur, he is a founding partner of the company Sistemas Genómicos (Genomic Systems), Valentia BioPharma and the Genomic Medicine Institute, among others.

Graduated in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Navarra, Manuel Corpas focused in the human genome since the very beginning of his career. He has worked in the National Institute of Bioinformatics and the Sanger Institute of genome analysis. Besides, he has lead a research about animal and plant’s genome in The Genome Analysis Center. Last 2016 he joined Repositive, a start-up specialized in sharing and storing genomes of different types. The aim is expanding and disseminating the expertise of this field of science. Now he is the CEO/Founder of Cambridge Precision Medicine.