Lynne is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, and the George Moody Fellow and Tutor in Biochemistry at Oriel College, Oxford. As a biogerontologist, she runs the Lab of Ageing and Cell Senescence, which researches the biological processes underlying ageing, with a particular focus on human premature ageing syndromes and cell senescence, a process whereby normal body cells change to a harmful state that contributes to diseases associated with ageing. They are using that core information to identify and test possible new treatments with the aim of improving health in later life. Their work is funded through UKRI (BBSRC, MRC), Research England (UK SPINE), Public Health England (now UK Health Security Agency), Diabetes UK/BIRAX and philanthropic support from the Mellon Longevity Science Programme at Oriel College, Oxford. Lynne is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and received the US Glenn Foundation Award for research into the biological mechanisms of ageing, presented at the House of Lords.

Lynne serves on the Clinical and Translational Theme panel of the Biochemical Society, the MRC Ageing Research Steering Group, and the strategic advisory board of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Longevity, in which role she co-authored the APPG’s National strategy report on “Health of the Nation – a strategy of healthier longer lives” launched by the Secretary of State of Health and Social Care in 2020. Internationally, she is a primary international member of Norwegian Centre for Healthy Ageing Network NO-Age, co-chair of the Special Interest Group in Ageing Biology of the European Geriatric Medicine Society and has recently served on the quinquennial review panel of the NIA Division of Aging Biology (USA). Lynne is a co-director of the new Building Links in Ageing Research and Translation (BLAST) network and the UK-wide Ageing research Network (https://www.ukanet.org.uk/), and has very recently been appointed as Programme Director of the new Wellcome Leap programme on Healthy Longevity.

Hannah completed a PhD at Liverpool John Moores University where she investigated the effectiveness of the polyphenol resveratrol in preventing muscle atrophy within an in vitro model of caloric restriction. On completion of her PhD in 2017, Hannah undertook a post-doctoral position at the University of Oxford. This work was in collaboration with Summit therapeutics with the aim to elucidate novel regulatory pathways understanding the mechanistic action of potential drug candidates designed to modulate utrophin in the hopes of mitigating the pathology in Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Hannah then moved to Kings College London in 2019 where she worked with Dr Julien Ochala utilising single muscle fibre techniques to examine physiological dysfunction and associated causes of congenital myopathies. Hannah took up a role as Lecturer in the area of molecular and cellular physiology in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences in 2022, where she focuses on skeletal muscle regenerative rehabilitation.

Keywords: Skeletal muscle, muscle disease, regenerative rehabilitation

Heather is a Senior Research Associate in biology at Astex Pharmaceuticals, currently working on drug discovery projects for CNS diseases. Prior to that, she completed a PhD in biochemistry at the University of Bristol, followed by a postdoc focused on mitochondrial dynamics and aging at Harvard School of Public Health.