The weekly operational monitoring board is made up of the IHU’s founding president, the IHU’s secretary general and the director of the IHU HealthAge’s programmes on healthy longevity, prevention and geroscience.
Bruno Vellas – (IHU Founding president)
Bruno VELLAS is the founder of the HealthAge University Hospital Institute on healthy longevity, prevention and geroscience at the Toulouse Gérontopôle. He is also Head of the Internal Medicine and Geriatrics Department at Toulouse University Hospital. He is a member of INSERM’s UMR 1295 Vieillissement unit. He studied medicine in Toulouse and obtained his Doctorate in Medicine in 1987 and his Doctorate in Science, specialising in Human Physiopathology, in 1990 from Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse. During his year of mobility from 1987 to 1988, he trained in nutrition and ageing at the Clinical Nutrition Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA. His main research interests are clinical trials in Alzheimer’s disease, frailty and geroscience, which have received national, European and international funding. He founded the Toulouse Gérontopôle to develop innovation and research on the elderly.
Since 1987, he has authored or co-authored more than 500 publications in scientific journals with an H Index : 130, and is a member of the Editorial Board and a reviewer for several major journals. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM, USA, and a member of the Scientific board of numerous scientific institutions in France, Europe, Japan and the USA. Since 2016, he has been a full member of the French National Academy of Medicine, an Officer in the Order of the Legion of Honour and an Officer in the Order of the Academic Palms. Between 2009 and 2013, he was President of the IAGG (International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics), an NGO in consultative status with the UN. Since September 2017, he has been Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Frailty, Clinical Research and Training in Geriatrics.
Finally, Bruno VELLAS is behind the INSPIRE programme in the field of geroscience.
Mathilde Cavalier – (IHU General Secretary)
Mathilde CAVALIER worked for almost 10 years on one of the largest national and European digital health records, the Dossier Pharmaceutique (DP) implemented by the National Order of Pharmacists (45 million records, 20,000 pharmacies and 550 health establishments connected, channel for distributing recalls of batches of medicines, etc.). She then took up the post of Director of Strategy and Funding at the French College of Radiology Teachers, where her duties included managing European projects to build up cancer imaging databases. Since 2023, she has been General Secretary of the IHU HealthAge and Director of the Pastel Foundation, the hospital foundation of Toulouse University Hospital.
Sophie Guyonnet – (IHU Programme Director)
Sophie GUYONNET is a Biologist (PhD, HDR) specialized in Nutrition and Ageing Research, Associate Professor at the IHU HealthAge, Gérontopôle/Toulouse University Hospital Department of Geriatric Medicine, University Toulouse III, CERPOP (Center for Epidemiology and Research in Population Health, UMR1295 INSERM (Ageing Team). She is responsible for the development of the Gérontopôle Cinical Research programmes, including design and execution of trials, regulatory procedures, budget, timelines, and communicating with key internal and external stakeholders. It field of expertise includes National and European coordination of large multicentric cohort of patients with Alzheimer Disease (REAL.FR study, PLASA study); National coordination of large multicentric preventive trials in the field of neurodegenerative diseases (MAPT, MAPT PLUS, NOLAN); Coordination of human biobanks (MAPT, NOLAN, INSPIRE-T); Nutritional factors, cognition and prevention of neurodegenerative diseases; Nutritional factors and prevention of intrinsic capacity decline; Multidomain approach. Since 2019, She is in charge of the management of the Inspire Bio-resource Research Platform for Healthy Ageing; the main objective of this platform is to build a comprehensive research platform gathering biological, clinical (including imaging) and digital resources that will be explored to identify robust (set of) markers of ageing, age-related diseases and intrinsic capacity evolution. One of the most challenge of the Inspire Platform is the implementation of a Human Translational Research cohort (INSPIRE-T cohort) and animal cohorts in mirror. Since 2024, she is the programme director of the IHU HealthAge on healthy longevity, prevention and gerosciences.
