D. Craig Willcox, MHSc, PhD, FGSA, serves as Co-Principal Investigator of the Okinawa Centenarian Study as well as a co-investigator for several cohort studies of healthy aging from the Kuakini Honolulu Heart Program. He is Professor of Gerontology and Public Health Science at Okinawa International University and adjunct Professor in the Department of Geriatric Medicine at University of Hawaii. Dr. Willcox is a fluent speaker of Japanese and has over 30 years of epidemiological research on Asian populations. His work has mainly focused on identifying genetic and lifestyle risk factors for longevity and includes caloric restriction and cardio-metabolic risk factor analyses, gene-environment interactions, epigenetics as well as dietary intervention studies. He has published extensively on the traditional Okinawan diet and its relationship to healthy aging and longevity. Dr. Willcox has also contributed as Associate Editor to several journals devoted to research on aging, such as Journals of Gerontology:Biological and Medical Sciences, Nutrition and Aging, and the recently established Nature partner journal npj Mechanisms of Aging and Disease among others. He has several nominations for Who`s Who in Healthcare and Medicine and according to Expertscape, Dr. Willcox is rated as the top expert in the field of heathy aging in Japan. He is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and a member of the Japanese Society for Anti-Aging Medicine and was recently invited to become a member of the The Royal Society of Medicine. He was also a co-developer of the Blue Zones concept and has contributed extensively to that project as a consultant for National Geographic. Dr Willcox has also co-authored two best- selling books (The Okinawa Program and The Okinawa Diet Plan) on lifestyle approaches for healthy aging that translate his research findings into practical public health programs. The Okinawa Program was a New York Times bestseller and was nominated for “Best Wellness Book of the Year” by “Books for a Better Life” and was an Amazon.com “Top Fifty Book of the Year”.

Michio Shimabukuro, MD, PhD, has been involved for two decades in the corroborative study for healthy aging and longevity with the Okinawa Research Center for Longevity Science (ORCLS). He graduated from University of the Ryukyus School of Medicine in 1987, where he completed clinical and research fellowships in Endocrinology and Cardiology. From 1995 to 1998, he held a Research Fellow appointment in Internal Medicine, directed by Dr. Roger H. Unger, at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. There, he and Dr. Unger proposed lipotoxicity theory as an underlying mechanism of obesity-related diseases. Subsequent appointments include Internal Medicine, University of the Ryukyus (Assistant Professor, 1999 to 2011) and Department of Cardio-Diabetes Medicine, The University of Tokushima Graduate School of Health Biosciences (Designated Professor, 2011 to 2015). He has been a full Professor at Fukushima Medical University since 2016.

Bradley J. Willcox MD, MSc, FGSA, FRSM, is Principal Investigator of the NIH-funded Hawaii Lifespan Study and Hawaii Healthspan Study, and co-Principal Investigator of the Okinawa Centenarian Study. He trained in Medicine at the University of Toronto, Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic, and Geriatric Medicine at Harvard Medical School and is Board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Geriatric Medicine. He is Full Professor and Director of Research at the Department of Geriatric Medicine, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, at the Kuakini Medical Center (KMC) Campus. At KMC he is also Principal Investigator and Director of the NIH-funded Center of Biomedical Research Excellence for Translational Research on Aging.. He was Physician Leader of the Long-Term Care Hospitalist Service at The Queens Medical Center, Honolulu, for over 10 years and established a new rehabilitation center to rejuvenate and transition geriatric patients from the hospital back to the community. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and has published widely on genetic factors, modifiable risk factors, and clinical aspects of healthy aging - as well as on evidence-based gerotherapeutics for healthy aging and longevity. He is a frequent reviewer for major medical journals and is on the Editorial Board of the Journals of Gerontology, the leading gerontological journals. Dr. Willcox also served on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA), which reviews all intramural NIA research programs. He is co-author of a New York Times bestselling book on healthy aging and his work has appeared on the covers of National Geographic, Time Magazine, as well as on Oprah, Good Morning America, BBC, TED-X and other major media. He has been on the scientific advisory board of several of the largest health care and nutrition companies in the world. He is recognized as among the top thirty-five experts in the world on aging and longevity, and world’s leading longevity expert with board certification in Geriatric Medicine.

Richard Allsopp, PhD, has been a member of the Okinawa Research Center for Longevity Research since 2014. He trained as a graduate student at McMaster University in the lab of Dr. Calvin Harley, where together they performed critical research in discovering the link between telomere shortening and cell senescence. He was also a fellow at Stanford University in the lab of stem cell pioneer Dr. Irving Weissman. He is a Full Professor at John A Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii. He has been the Principal Investigator on several NIH grants to study the biology of aging and human longevity, and co-Directs the NIH COBRE Translational Research on Aging grant with Dr. Willcox. He has an extensive background in the basic biology of human aging, particularly the role of telomeres and stem cells in aging where he is internationally recognized. Recently, he and colleagues showed that the longevity associated variant of FOXO3 also protects against telomere shortening, and provides resilience to certain age-related diseases. Dr. Allsopp has been a keynote speaker at several international meetings on healthy aging.