The Irish Gerontological Society, together with the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics - European Region, would be grateful if you could kindly forward this important newsletter update to your colleagues and friends to whom it may be of interest.

Early-bird deadline is TOMORROW 30th January 2015

>>Register now << 

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

I am delighted to announce that the symposium, individual oral presentation, and poster presentation schedules for our congress are now availalble.  You will find these details, which will form the core of our programme, here on the IAGG-ER 2015 website.

Our plans are progressing nicely.  We are very confident that IAGG-ER Congress 2015 will be an exciting, educational and productive experience for the 1500+ Irish and international delegates that we will welcome to the Conference Centre in Dublin in April.

1400 research abstracts, 25 renowned international keynote speakers, and over 100 symposia sessions will provide outstanding opportunities for our delegates to gain access to key researchers, opinion-leaders and practitioners in ageing research and practice in Europe and further afield.

Our state-of-the-art scientific programme includes contributions from over fifty countries!  Every day, we continue to receive new, exciting inputs.  The extensive schedule of activities is a work-in-progress and you can stay up-to-date by keeping an eye on the congress website .

With just three short months to go now to this significant conference, the congress team is working diligently to ensure that the participation of our delegates and sponsors is productive and rewarding.

No doubt, our myriad speakers and accepted presenters are busy preparing too. Why not make an early-bird reservation part of YOUR preparations.  If you book your place by tomorrow 12 midnight (GMT), you can make a saving of €120 (on regular registration fee).

The members of the Irish Local Organising Committee, together with the members of the IAGG-ER International Committee, are very much looking forward to warmly welcoming you to Dublin in April.

Best regards

Des O' Neill

Prof. Athanase Benetos, France

Professor of Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, and Chairman of Geriatrics, University of Nancy, France.  Athanase Benetos was born in Athens, Greece in 1956. He is married and the father of four children.

He is Full Professor of Internal Medicine and Geriatrics, and Chairman of Geriatrics, at the University of Nancy, France. He is also a Senior Researcher at INSERM (National Institute of Biomedical Research) Unit 1116, as well as Chief of the University Centre for Research and Education on Ageing (Centre EFORVIE, University of Nancy) and Head of the Clinical Investigation Center on Aging at the University Hospital of Nancy, France.

Prof. Benetos has been recently elected as Academic Director of the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society (EUGMS) for the period 2014-2018. For the period 2009-2013, he was the Treasurer of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics (IAGG).

He was also member of the Board of the European Academy for Medicine of Aging (EAMA) (2006-2012), and is member of the National Center of the French Universities (CNU), Commission 53-01 Internal Medicine, Geriatrics and Biology of Aging, since 2004.

His research interests include biomarkers of ageing, telomere dynamics, age-related changes in large arteries, as well as the role of hypertension and other risk factors on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.

Prof. Benetos is member of several French national and international medical societies and has positions in several international peer- reviewed journals.

He has authored more than 300 papers published in peer-reviewed international scientific journals and has participated in several scientific books on the topics of telomeres, hypertension, and the influence of arterial aging on dementia and other age-related diseases.

In 2010 Prof. Benetos published in French (Ed. Robert Laffont, Paris) the book “ABCDaire du future Centenaire”. This book has been also translated in Greek (Ed. Patakis, Athens)

Prof. Tilman Grune, Germany

Prof. Tilman Grune is Scientific Director of the German Institute of Human Nutrition and Professor for Toxicology, University of Potsdam.

Studies of Medical Biochemistry in Moscow, Russia, Graduation at the Humboldt University Berlin (Charité), Germany, followed by post-doc positions in Berlin, Germany, and Albany (NY), US, several faculty positions in Berlin and Düsseldorf, and full professorship at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart and the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena.

 
Editor-in-Chief of Redox Biology, and on the Editorial Board of several journals. Chairman of the European COST network CM1001 on 'Nonenzymatic posttranslational protein modification' and vice-chair of the European project MARK-AGE on 'Biomarkers of Aging' Publications >320, h-Index 59.  The research is focused on the oxidative stress response of cells. The oxidative damage to proteins, the protection of proteins from oxidation and the fate of a protein if it is oxidized are major research topics. Therefore, various proteases and proteolytic systems for the ability to recognize and degrade oxidized proteins are investigated.

Recently the research focus was on oxidation-related changes in the aging process. Model systems of aging skin or brain are employed to investigate processes of lipid peroxidation, protein oxidation, the removal of oxidized protein and effects of nutritional components on these processes. A central role in these investigations is the investigation of functional consequences of the formed age-related protein aggregates and the impact of nutrition on these processes.

Prof. Raimundo Mateos, Spain

Raimundo Mateos is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and coordinator of the Psychogeriatric Unit of its University Hospital, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

He holds  a Master’s  in the Management of Gerontological Centers.  He is also a Group Psychotherapist.

For nearly 25 years he has been very active in the clinical psychogeriatric field.  A particular recent area of expertise is the use of videoconference to provide psychogeriatric consultation to nursing homes.

Professor Mateos has led several epidemiological surveys representative of the adult and older population in Galicia (Spain).  He is currently the president of the Spanish Society of Psychiatric Epidemiology (SEEP).

He has been a member of the board of several gerontological societies at national and international level.  He is the past president of the Spanish psychogeriatric society (SEPG); now he is the President-Elect of the International Psychogeriatric Association (IPA).

Affiliations:
Raimundo Mateos
Department of Psychiatry, University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) and University Hospital. Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Mail address:  raimundo.mateos@usc.es

Prof. Marja Jylhä, Finland

Marja Jylhä is the Professor of Gerontology in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Tampere, Finland, and a vice-director of the Gerontology Research Center (www.gerec.fi) , a collaborative effort in ageing research run jointly by the University of Jyväskylä and the University of Tampere. 

Her research covers multiple ageing-related themes such as health and functioning, longevity, ageing as individual experience, and the social and cultural impacts of population ageing. She is the Principal Investigator of the Vitality 90+ Study, focusing on changes and determinants of health, functional status and service use of nonagenarians since 1995, and the Co-Principal Investigator of the project “New Dynamics of Longevity and the Changing Needs for Services (COCTEL), which focuses on the impacts of longer lives on needs for services in the last years of life.

She has been active in several European projects such as ERA-AGE and FUTURAGE, and currently she is member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Joint Programming Initiative “More Years, Better Lives”. She is also a Fellow the Gerontological Society of America.

Prof. Jylhä is interested in human aging as a phenomenon at the cross-roads between biology, psychology and the social world, and in the cross-fertilization between quantitative and qualitative approaches.  Her work on self-rated health that has continued for several decades reflects these interdisciplinary interests.

The organising committee is delighted to have accepted abstracts submissions from....

...Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, French Southern Territories, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norfolk Island, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, UK, USA.

Things you might not know about Ireland!

Ireland is the only country in the world which has a musical instrument – the harp – as our national symbol. The oldest known harp in existence is housed in Trinity College, Dublin. It dates back from at least 1300.

Tuckey’s Cork Remembrancer records a poor laboring man who lived in Ovens, County Cork in the early 19th century. He died at the age of 127.

Halloween's origins can be traced back to the Gaelic festival of Samhain, a harvest festival held on 31 October to mark the end of summer. Samhain became associated with All Saints (1 November) from the early Middle Ages and the two progressively merged over the centuries, creating Halloween.

Ireland has the highest number of wins of the Eurovision Song Contest.  We triumphed seven times - more than any other country!  (in 1970, 1980, 1987, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1996)

Dracula was an Irishman!  Well, perhaps not.  However, his creator,  Bram Stoker, was a native-born Dubliner.  Dracula is said to have been inspired by the early Irish legend of Abhartach, an evil chieftain who, after being betrayed by his subjects and slain by the hero Cathrain, rose from his grave every night to drink the blood of his subjects.

Ireland has an enormous Diaspora, estimated by some as totalling some 70 million people worldwide who can claim some Irish descent.  

The Hashtag for Congress is #IAGGER8

You can join in the conversation by following us @IAGGER2015

You can follow the Irish Gerontological Society @irishgerontsoc

Please circulate widely to your colleagues that early-bird registration deadline is midnight Friday 30th January 2015.  

Click Here to Register Now!