Professor Sir Peter Gluckman trained as paediatrician and endocrinologist before entering career focused on the biology of the fetus, the biology of growth, development and metabolic disease and the interface between evolutionary biology and medicine. He is University Distinguished Professor (2001) and head of the Centre for Human Evolution, Adaptation and Disease in the Liggins Institute of the University of Auckland, and programme director for growth, development and metabolism at the Singapore Institute of Clinical Sciences (2007-). He holds honorary chairs in Southampton, Singapore and Chile. He previously chaired the WHO Technical Advisory Committee on Optimising the Outcomes of Pregnancy.
Prof Mark Hanson is the UK's leading researcher on developmental pathways to disease. He is current President of the International Society for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease. He has served on WHO committees and chairs an advisory committee in China focused on the diabetes epidemic. In the UK he directs the Division of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease at the University of Southampton, and overseas he holds visiting appointments in Auckland, Singapore, Dublin and Shanghai.