Peter Gluckman, University Distinguished Professor; Professor of Paediatric and Perinatal Biology; and Head, Centre of Human Evolution, Adaptation and Disease, The University of Auckland, New Zealand,Mark Hanson, Director, Academic Unit of Human Development and Health; Director, Institute of Developmental Sciences and British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiovascular Science, University of Southampton, UK,Chong Yap Seng, Senior Consultant, National University Hospital, Women's Centre, Singapore,Anne Bardsley, Research Associate, The Liggins Institute, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Professor Gluckman trained in paediatrics and endocrinology at the Universities of Otago and Auckland, and the University of California, San Francisco. He returned to the University of Auckland to establish a research group in perinatal physiology, and later served as executive Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and was the foundation director of the Liggins Institute, where he now heads the Centre of Human Evolution, Adaptation and Disease. His research encompasses the regulation of fetal and postnatal growth, nutrition, obesity and diabetes, the developmental origins of metabolic disease, the evolutionary-developmental biology-medical interface, and epigenetic epidemiology. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of NZ, a Companion of the NZ Order of Merit, and in 2009 was conferred a knighthood. He was appointed University Distinguished Professor by the University of Auckland in 2001, when he was also awarded New Zealand's highest scientific award, the Rutherford Medal.
Professor Hanson's research concerns several aspects of development and health, ranging from how the environment during our development (before and after birth) can affect the risk of chronic diseases such as hypertension and obesity, to population studies aimed at the early identification of risk, so that timely preventative interventions can be made. The group is exploring the epigenetic processes which relate to such risks, and which may serve as valuable early life biomarkers. His Unit works on these problems in both developed and developing countries in many parts of the world. Mark has pioneered a hospital research lab based education programme for adolescents, LifeLab, in Southampton. This aims to promote health and science literacy in students through context-specific curriculum material and a visit to a research lab, giving them hands-on experience of current research tools and engaging them with biomedical science under the heading of "Me, My Health and My Children's Health".
Associate Professor Chong Yap Seng is a Senior Consultant in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, National University Hospital. As the Consultant in charge of the Delivery Suite in NUH since 2001, Yap Seng balances interests in high-risk obstetrics with natural childbirth and breastfeeding advocacy. He is also an active researcher with special interest in fetal growth and early development. He is the Principal Investigator of the National Research Foundation Metabolic Translational and Clinical Research Flagship Programme and an Adjunct Principal Investigator in the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences, Agency for Science, Technology and Research. His other research interests include strategies to promote breastfeeding, the genetic epidemiology of pregnancy-related disorders, and intrapartum and postpartum management issues.
Dr Bardsley trained in molecular and developmental biology at the University of Colorado, (Boulder, CO, USA), where she explored the phenomenon of maternal effect genes, and later carried out research in developmental genetics at Lund University (Sweden) and the University of Auckland. She spent 13 years as writer and editor for a suite of biomedical journals before returning to a research position at the Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland in 2012.