Thomas von Zglinicki is a founding member of the basic biology branch of the Newcastle Ageing Institute and its present scientific director. His principal research interest is in understanding the cellular and molecular signaling pathways connecting DNA damage responses (specifically emanating from dysfunctional telomeres) with mitochondrial function and metabolism, thus causing and maintaining cell senescence, and how these contribute to organism ageing. He was the first to discover oxidative stress and resulting DNA damage as a major cause of telomere shortening and to propose telomere length as a biomarker of ageing in humans. He chairs the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the Leibniz Institute for Environmental Medicine Dusseldorf (Germany) and is a member of the Mayo Clinic Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging SAB. He published over 200 papers on cell and molecular biology of ageing, resulting in an h-index of 50. Professor von Zglinicki came to Newcastle University in 2000 because it had shown the foresight to develop excellent research facilities for studying the biology of ageing that he was unable to find at that time in his native Germany. His work has since made a big contribution to the University’s growing global reputation across the whole ageing agenda.