The participants were (in alphabetical order):

Bruce Ames (U. California at Berkeley): co-organiser and host. Winner of the National Medal of Science. Relevant expertise: the anti-aging and anti-cancer role of micronutrients; the dietary reversal of bioenergetic decline.

Julie Andersen (Buck Institute) Relevant expertise: the cell biology and free radical biochemistry of age-related neurodegenerative diseases, especially Parkinson’s disease; transgenic interventions in such diseases.

Andrzej Bartke (Southern Illinois University School of Medicine) Relevant expertise: the role of growth hormone, and other hormones, in determining the rate of aging; interventions to reverse the age-related changes in hormone levels.

Judith Campisi (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Relevant expertise: the pathological significance of replicative senescence in aging, including both the loss of proliferative potential and the intercellular toxicity (especially carcinogenicity) of dysregulated enzyme secretion; the reversal of such pathology by elimination of cells that are approaching or have reached replicative senescence.

Aubrey de Grey (U. Cambridge, UK): co-organiser and moderator. Relevant expertise: the role of mitochondrial mutations in aging; the development of nuclear-coded replacements for the mitochondrial DNA; the elimination of cells containing mainly mutant mitochondrial DNA; the removal of normally undegradable, heavily cross-linked intracellular aggregates.

Christopher Heward (U. California at Los Angeles; Kronos Scientific Director). Relevant expertise: detailed clinical analysis of age-related degenerative changes; dietary and pharmacological interventions to pre-empt and/or reverse these changes.

Roger McCarter (U. Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio) Relevant expertise: the mechanisms underlying loss of muscle mass during aging (sarcopenia); therapies to reverse it.

Gregory Stock (U. California at Los Angeles): co-organiser. Convenor of the 1999 Milestone’s Conference. Relevant expertise: the scientific, social, and ethical implications of recent and likely future breakthroughs in molecular biology and genetics.

Additionally, for parts of the meeting we were joined by Prof. Paola Timiras and members of Prof. Ames's research group. Steven Austad was originally scheduled to participate, leading the opening session on the nature of negligible senescence, but personal reasons forced him to pull out at the last minute. Likewise, Anthony Cerami was initially sceduled to lead the session on cross-linking, but pulled out shortly before the meeting.