Medical Officer, Ageing and Health, Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child & Adolescent Health and Ageing (MCA), UHC life course, World Health Organization

Yuka Sumi holds an MD from Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, a PhD from Osaka University, Japan, and MPH from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She is a certified specialist of Acute and Critical Care Medicine. She has worked as an associate professor in the Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine and in the Faculty of Gerontology in Juntendo University. In 2016, she joined the Healthcare New Frontier Promotion Headquarters Office in Kanagawa Prefectural Government in Japan as a Global Health Senior Project Leader.

Since December 2016, she is responsible for WHO Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) approach and involved in the publication of ICOPE guidelines in 2017, and led the development of ICOPE package of tools such as ICOPE handbook and digital app: guidance for person-centred assessment and pathways in primary care in 2019. She is a secretariat of WHO Clinical Consortium on Healthy ageing (CCHA)  to contribute to the development of standards and guidelines on the clinical aspects of Healthy Ageing. Under CCHA, she coordinates activities such as ICOPE implementation pilot programme and ICOPE training for health and care workers to support country implementation. She has also led the development of a progress report on UN Decade of Healthy Ageing 2021-2023 as well as WHO guideline for non-surgical management of chronic primary low back pain in adults in primary and community care settings.

Dr. Ramesh Kandel is a pioneering geriatrician and a leading expert in ageing and healthcare for older
adults in Nepal. As the first registered geriatrician in the country, he has been instrumental in shaping
geriatric medicine policies and clinical services. He currently serves as the Dean and Associate Professor
of Geriatric Medicine at the Rapti Academy of Health Sciences (RAHS), Nepal.
His contributions extend beyond academia into national and global health initiatives, including his role
for the WHO Clinical Consortium on Healthy Ageing (CCHA). He has been a principal consultant for
multiple government projects focused on developing national geriatric care strategies, training
programs, and service standards.
His research and publications in ICOPE, geriatrics, ageing, and frailty have gained international
recognition, and he has been an invited speaker at numerous global conferences. Passionate about
improving elderly care, Dr. Kandel continues to work at the intersection of clinical practice, policy-
making, and public health to enhance healthy ageing in Nepal and beyond.

Associate Professor Reshma Merchant
Head of Division Geriatric Medicine and Senior Consultant
Department of Medicine
NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. National University of Singapore
National University Health System, Singapore

She graduated from the University of Edinburgh and obtained her postgraduate qualification from the Royal College of Physicians, London, in 1999, where she worked for several years before returning to Singapore in 2001. She is a member of WHO Global Network on Long-term care (GNLTC), Clinical Consortium on Healthy Aging and recognised as a thought leader and special expert in policy, research and practice in fields associated with population ageing globally. She has won multiple clinical and teaching awards, including the NUHS-Mochtar Riady Pinnacle Master Clinician Award in 2022. She is well published and her main areas of research interests are in sarcopenia, frailty and healthy ageing in community dwelling older adults. She is currently leading the frailty prevention initiative at Health District @ Queenstown in Singapore.

Serge Adnot is Professor of Physiology, physician in the clinical functional testing department at the H Mondor teaching hospital in Creteil, head of an INSERM respiratory-research group at the The Mondor Institute for Biomedical Research (IMRB, U955 Inserm/UPEC), Créteil. He was appointed in 2021 as a part-time Professor (25%) at the Justus Liebig University of Giessen (Germany) where he heads a research team in the recently created “Institute for Lung Health”. His research focuses on the role for cell senescence in chronic lung diseases. He has pioneered the concept that lung cell senescence is a major driver of age related lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and pulmonary hypertension. His group obtained four patents over the last 4 years. He coordinates clinically oriented research and academic projects (e.g., ANR, ARC, INCA).