Professor Bruno Vellas was born in 1957 in Toulouse, France and is currently Chairman of the Toulouse Gérontopôle, Chief of the Department of Internal Medicine and Geriatrics at the Toulouse University Hospital, and Chief of Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical Research Centre, University of Toulouse. He is also member of the INSERM (National Institute of Medical Research) Unit558 on Aging. He is Principal investigator of the European Alzheimer’s Disease Consortium (EADC) and of other large international trials in the field of Alzheimer’s Disease. Professor Vellas obtained his medical degree (MD) and PhD from the University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, and for more than fifteen years now, he has been involved in many studies on Alzheimer's disease. Professor Vellas has published over 300 articles related to Alzheimer’s Disease and specially on disease modifying treatment.

Professor Alain Franco was born in 1944 in Grenoble, France, and obtained his Medical Degree in Grenoble in 1974, while becoming a specialist in Internal Medicine in 1978. In 1982 he became professor of Internal medicine and Geriatric Medicine, a position he still holds, teaching geriatrics, gerontology and gerontechnology at the Joseph Fourier University, Grenoble 1. From 1989 to 2006 he chaired the Department of Geriatric and Community Medicine of CHU, Academic Hospital of Grenoble. As to research, in 1994 he founded the Grenoble Interuniversity Laboratory for Gerontology and has been directing it until 2007. From 1995 to 2000, he served in different scientific local, regional and European programs. From 2000, he served as President of the French Society for Geriatrics and Gerontology, until 2002.  From 2002 to 2008, he has been President of the College of French Geriatric Professionals, that he founded. Internationally, he was the European coordinator for the Tempus Program JEP 2762 (France, Italy, Romania) from 1992 to 1995, participated in the Tempus Program CME 01194 – 95 and ERBFMBICT 961325 (Telemedicine). He is a Board member of the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society (EUGMS) and served as ‘Observor’ at the GMS-UEMS for the French Geriatricians. He is the President of the French Society for Gerontechnology, SFTAG since 2006, and of the International Society for Gerontechnology, based in The Netherlands since 2008. Alain Franco has recently been asked to follow his Academic career moving in 2010 as a Professor to Nice’s University, France.

Professor Athanase Benetos was born in 1956 in Athens, Greece. He was a Research Fellow at Boston University, Boston (1984-1987) and obtained his PhD at the University of Paris VI (1994). He was a Senior Consultant in Hypertension, at Broussais Hospital in Paris (1988-2002) and an Associate Professor of Clinical Therapeutics, at University Paris VI (1992-1995). He became Research Director at INSERM (National Institute of Medical Research) (1996-2002) and Chief of the Epidemiology Department of the Medical Center “Investigations Préventives et Cliniques” (IPC) in Paris (1995-2002). 

Prof. Benetos is currently Senior Researcher at the INSERM (National Institute of Medical Research) and Chief of the University Center for Research and Education on Aging (Centre EFORVIE, University of Nancy).

Professor Benetos has been involved in different research programs related to biomarkers of aging, Telomere dynamics, epidemiology, genetics and treatment of the age-related changes of large arteries, the role of hypertension, heart rate and other risk factors on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. He presented 225 publications in international scientific journals with peer-review committee (Medline).

Dr. Renato Maia Guimarães is the President of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics for the term 2005 to 2009, and was the chair of the organizing committee of the 18^th World Congress of IAGG, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 26-30, 2005. He graduated in Medicine in 1975 and spent two years in the University of Birmingham, England, working under the supervision of Professor Bernard Isaacs. In Birmingham Dr. Maia Guimarães was deeply involved in research on falls in the elderly, and published with Professor Isaacs a pioneer paper on gait abnormalities related to falls.(Guimarães R M , Isaacs B. Characteristics of gait in old people who fall. Int. Rehab. Med, 1980; 2: 177-180.) His MSc. thesis was also based in the research in gait and falls.

On returning to Brazil Dr. Maia Guimarães developed the Health Program for the Elderly, for the Brazilian Ministry of Health. For five years he traveled all over the country as a consultant to local health authorities on the epidemiological transition and in the planning of health care for the elderly. During the time he was in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Maia Guimarães also created a program for health promotion ("Viva Bem a Idade que Você Tem") recognized as the most creative and efficient strategy for education of the elderly in Brazil so far. In 1991 Dr. Maia Guimarães took a position at the University Hospital of Universidade de Brasília, where he developed, and currently runs, the Medical Center for the Elderly, and he is also a professor of Geriatric Medicine. This Center has a geriatric outpatient clinic, a memory clinic, a psychogeriatric day hospital, a research center on physical activities for the elderly, and special services for Alzheimer's patients. The Ministry of Health has accredited it as a reference center for the elderly. Dr. Maia Guimarães was a member of the WHO Experts Panel in Health of the Elderly, and has been a consultant to the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) in education in Geriatrics. He is a co-author of the PAHO "Manual de Aspectos Clinicos del Adulto Mayor".

Dr. Maia Guimarães has been very active in the Brazilian Geriatrics and Gerontological Society, where he served two terms as president. He organized several congresses, including the XII Brazilian Congress of Geriatrics and Gerontology, the First Brazil-France Meeting in Geriatrics, and the VII forum of Geriatric Neuro-Psychiatry. He was a founding member of the Brazilian Association of Geriatric Neuro-Psychiatry and of the Brazilian Association for Alzheimer Disease (ABRAZ). He has been an IAGG council member since 1997. He is the author of "Sinais e Sintomas em Geriatria" which is widely recognized as a major textbook in Geriatrics written by a Brazilian specialist, now in its second edition. Dr. Maia Guimarães has published more than 40 papers and chapters of books, and has presented over 280 papers in scientific meetings in Brazil and abroad. In 2001 he was awarded a distinction for a research he conducted and published in the scientific journal of the Brasilia Medical Association ("Depression: the unrecognized morbidity in the elderly surgical patient"). Dr. Maia Guimarães is involved in community affairs and is often invited to deliver lectures on aging all over the country. His research interests are Alzheimer disease, depression and epidemiology of aging. Dr. Maia Guimarães also has a special interest in mechanisms of aging.

Professor Cha graduated in Sociology from the Seoul National University and obtained his PhD at Choong-Ang University in Korea and began his career in 1971 in the Government of the Republic of Korea as Junior Secretary to the Office of the President. He then became Director of the Social Welfare Department in the Health Insurance Department of the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Republic of Korea. 

From 1976 to 1997, Professor Cha joined Hallym University, first as Professor of the Department of Social Welfare, then as Dean of the Social Science College and lastly as Vice President of the Establishment. Between 1997 and 1999, he chaired the Organizing Committee of IAGG’s 6th Asia/Oceania Regional Congress held in Seoul and also became President of the National Pension Corporation of Korea.

In 1999, Prof. Cha became Minister of Health and Welfare of the Republic of Korea.

From 2003 to 2004, Prof. Cha was respectively Dean at the Graduate School of Social Welfare at Hallym University, President of the Korean Gerontological Society, President of the Federation of Korean Gerontological Societies, President of the Korean Academy of Social Welfare. In 2004, he was appointed Advisory Chair at the Presidential Committee on Aging and Future Society of The Republic of Korea and two years later Chair of the Ministerial Committee on Future Strategy of Health Care Security. He is currently President of the Korean Association for Vision of Aging Society.

Professor ABODERIN is a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute of Ageing, University of Oxford (OIA). She has extensive expertise in qualitative research and experience of quantitative analysis and survey design. Her research interests centre on three areas: social and life course determinants of health in old age, ageing and development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and intergenerational family support and social change in SSA.

Toni C. Antonucci is the Elizabeth M. Douvan Collegiate Professor of Psychology, Program Director and Research Professor in the Life Course Development Program at the Institute for Social Research and Associate Vice President for Research, all at the University of Michigan.  She was President of the Gerontological Society of America and the Society for the Study of Human Development and served as editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.  She is currently series editor of the Annual Review of Geriatrics and Gerontology for Springer Publishing Company. She is a member of the Executive Board of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development and Secretary General-Elect of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics, past chair of the American Psychological Association’s Committee on Aging and Board of Scientific Affairs. She is a fellow of the Gerontology Society of America, American Psychological Association, and the Association of Psychological Science.

Dr. Antonucci’s research focuses on social relations and health across the life span and has emphasized the importance of both positive and negative relations.  Her research includes studies of the family and multigenerational relations, as well as comparative studies of social relations and health in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Japan.  She received a Research Career Development Award and is currently funded or has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Aging and several private foundations, most recently, the Fetzer Institute.  She has numerous scientific publications, in 2010 she edited (with James S. Jackson) Life Course Perspectives on Late Life Health Inequalities and in 2011 edited (with Karen Fingerman, Cynthia Berg and Jacqui Smith) the Handbook of Life Span Development.

Prof. Du Peng, Ph.D., graduated from the Renmin University of China in 1992. Currently he is the author or editor-in-chief of Disabled Persons in Rural China(2008), Population Ageing and Ageing Issues(2006), Population Ageing:Changes and Challenges(2006), Ageing Issues and Policies in European Union Countries(2000), Who will Provide for the Chinese Elderly(2000), Chinese Elderly in the Ageing Process (1996), The Process of Pupulation Ageing in China (1994), and the co‑author of Social Gerontology (1999), The Ageing of Population in China (1991). Prof. Du is also a board member of United Nations International Institute on Ageing, and HelpAge International. He is presently Professor and Director of the Academic Research Office of the Renmin University of China.

Doctor José Ricardo JAUREGUI was licensed as physician in 1986, at Buenos Aires University, School of Medicine and graduated with a diploma of honor. He took his residency's programme in Internal Medicine between 1987 and 1990, graduated as well as Geriatrician in a first specialist's course in the S.A.G.G in 1990. Then Dr JAUREGUI graduated formally in a Universitary Specialist Carreer in Geriatrics under the chair of Professor Roberto KAPLAN, and finally went to England, at Wales University, with Dr. Anthony BAYER as tutorship in1995 for a few month, making a rotation in various Geriatrics Services, for example Wales University Geriatric Department, Birgmingham University Geriatric Department with Prof. Alan SINCLAIR and finally in South West London where he visited several Geriatrics institutions in rural or suburban area.

Since 1991, Dr JAUREGUI works in a Teaching Nursing Home at Hospital Italiano of Buenos Aires, is a staff member of the Family and Community Department (Chief of Geriatric Branch) in the same hospital and is currently Chief Director of Hospital Italiano de San Justo, Agustín Roca (that includes hospital and nursing home).

Dr JAUREGUI is Executive member of the Sociedad Argentina de Gerontologia y Geriatria (S.A.G.G) since 2006, Council member since 2007 and Secretary General since 2009.

Finally, Dr JAUREGUI is presently finishing his PhD period at Salamanca University in Spain, where he will defend his thesis in March 2012. He is Professor of Geriatric Medicine at Buenos Aires University, Tucuman University and Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires School of Medicine, Professor of Family Medicine at University of Buenos Aires, and associated researcher in the same place with a directorship of a new Institut of Biology of Aging.

Vladimir Kh. Khavinson was born in 1946. A high-level sportsman, Prof. Khavinson entered the S.M. Kirov Medical Military Academy (St Petersburg) in 1965 and graduated in 1971 with a diploma in treatment and prevention. In 1977, after his military service, he was appointed senior resident doctor at the same Academy and received the Medical Sciences degree in 1978. In 1982, he became junior research officer, in 1985 senior research officer and in 1987 obtained his Doctor's degree. In 1988, he was appointed Chief of the Research Laboratory of Bioregulators. In 1989, Prof. Khavinson established the State Biomedical Scientific and Production Complex “Cytomed”, that he leads until 1992. That year, he founded the Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology and became its Director. In 2001, the Institute was integrated into the North-Western Branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. 

A major actor of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in the field of “Gerontology and Geriatrics”, he was designated Professor of the Chair of gerontology and geriatrics of the St Petersburg Medical Academy of Postgraduate Studies of the Russian Ministry of Health. In 2007, he was appointed Main gerontologist of the Health Committee of the Government of St Petersburg. Since October 2007, he is Head of the Sector of peptide regulation of ageing of the Institute of Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Prof. Khavinson has over 700 research publications and was awarded many distinguished prizes in Russia, Ukrainia, Germany for his different works on peptide bioregulators. 

In 1994, he was elected Vice-President of the Gerontological Society of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He became an active member of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1995, and of the Italian Academy of Economics and Social Sciences in 1996 . He became an academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences that same year.

Prof. Khavinson is engaged in IAGG since 1997 : first as member of the European Region Council and then in 2007 as President of the Biological Section.