1976-1985: Studied chemistry at the University of Mainz. Received a Ph. D. in Organic Chemistry in 1985 under the guidance of Prof. H. Kunz.
1985-1986: Postdoctoral fellow with Prof. George Whitesides at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1986-1991: Habilitation at the University of Mainz. Obtained tenure in 1991.
1991: Appointment as Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Bonn.
1993: Appointment as Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe.
1998: Calls to the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, Dortmund and to the University of Dortmund, to the Technische Universität München and the Technische Universität Stuttgart.
1999: Appointment as Director at the Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Physiology Dortmund, Department of Chemical Biology and as Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Dortmund.
1999: Call to the Chair of Organic and Bioorganic Chemistry at the University of Leeds.(not accepted)
2007-2008: Managing Director of the Center of Advanced European Studies and Research (“caesar”), Bonn
2014: Honorary Doctorate (Dr. h. c.) bestowed by Leiden University, NL

Prof. Waldmann’s research interests lie in the analysis of natural product structure for Biology Oriented Synthesis (BIOS) which employs biological relevance and prevalidation to identify novel bioactive compounds for the study of biology. This work includes the design and synthesis of natural product-inspired compound collections and the development of novel enantioselective synthesis methodology, cell-based screening and identification of the cellular targets of bioactive compounds. A major focus of research in the Waldmann group is on the synthesis of lipidated peptides and proteins in particular of the Ras superfamily and the development of small molecule modulators of their function.

He has been the recipient of the Friedrich Weygand Award for the advancement of peptide chemistry, of the Carl Duisberg Award of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, the Otto-Bayer-Award, the Steinhofer Award of the Steinhofer Foundation, the Max Bergmann Medal, the GSK Award on Chemical Biology, the Hans-Herloff Inhoffen-Medal, the Emil-Fischer-Medal, he is a Member of „Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, Halle/Saale“, of the NRW Akademie der Wissenschaft und der Künste and since 2005 he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Among his lectureships are the prestigious Van de Kerk Lectureship, University of Utrecht, 2002, the Amgen Lecturer, USA 2003, the R. Raphael Lectureship, Glasgow, 2005, the Roessler Lectures, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA, 2006 as well as the Musgrave Lectureship, Department of Chemistry, University of Durham, GB 2006, the Bridget Ogilvie Lecture, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee, GB, 2006 , the Melvin Calvin Lecture, UC Berkeley, USA, 2007, the Cedric Hassall Lecture, Gregynog, GB, 2007, the IICT Hyderabad Foundation Day Lecture, India, 2008, the Felix Serratosa Lecture, CSIC Barcelona, Spain, 2009 and the Wang Yu Memorial Lecture, Shanghai, 2009, the 35th Mellanby Memorial Lecture, CDRI, Lucknow, India, 2010 and the Wilhelm-Manchot Research Professor- and Lectureship, TU Munich, 2011.

Tobias was born in 1975 in Lübeck, Germany. He received his undergraduate education in Braunschweig, Germany, Bordeaux, France, Lausanne, Switzerland, and Stanford, US, and received a master of science from Braunschweig University in 1999. He has done undergraduate research with Prof. Barry M. Trost at Stanford, obtained his PhD working with Prof. Erick M. Carreira at ETH Zurich in 2004, and was a postdoc with Prof. Robert H. Grubbs at Caltech. In 2006, Tobias was appointed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard and promoted to Associate Professor in 2010. His research program is based on synthetic organic and organometallic chemistry. The Ritter lab currently focuses on fluorination chemistry for late-stage functionalization of complex natural and unnatural products and bimetallic transition metal redox catalysis.

His research fields are asymmetric synthesis, the synthesis of biologically active compounds, organocatalysis – especially N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) catalysis and domino reactions.

Dieter Enders studied chemistry at the University of Giessen and got his Dr. rer. nat. degree there in 1974. After a postdoct stay at Harvard University Cambridge, USA he returned to Giessen for his habilitation in 1979. He became Associate Professor at the University of Bonn (1980) and Full Professor at the RWTH Aachen University (1985). He is the recipient of many national and international awards.

Prof Laurence Harwood pursued his PhD studies at Manchester University under the direction of Professor Hamish Sutherland, and gained his doctorate in 1978. After postdoctoral study at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris with Professor Marc Julia from 1978 to 1980. He returned to Manchester, becoming a member of the chemistry faculty and, in 1983, moved to a Tutorial Fellowship and Lectureship at Merton College and the Dyson Perrins Laboratory, Oxford University. In 1996, he moved to the Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of Reading. He has supervised more than 60 doctoral co-workers and has published more than 150 scientific articles and communications in peer-reviewed international journals and over 20 review articles, book chapters and patents. He is author or co-author of four textbooks, with translations into German, Japanese, Greek, Russian and Indonesian, including “Experimental Organic Chemistry which has sold almost 30,000 copies worldwide and is about to appear in its 3rd edition. He has been Synlett Regional Editor for Europe and Countries excluding the Americas and the Far East since 2001 and is a member of Editorial Advisory Boards for ARKIVOK, Current Organic Synthesis, Targets in Heterocyclic Systems, Jordanian Journal of Chemistry and Cogent Chemistry.

His research focuses on the development of new synthetic methods and their application to the synthesis of natural and unnatural products. There are projects underway with the aims of developing synthetic approaches towards amino acids and peptides with an increasing emphasis on chemistry at the biological interface. This work led to formation of a spin out company, TechnoPep, in 2010 of which he is Chief Scientific Officer. At the same the group also has interests in the materials area, working closely with academic institutes and industrial centres throughout Europe in the area of nuclear reprocessing, developing ligands that selectively remove the minor actinides from waste nuclear fuel to reduce the long term nuclear legacy of stored waste. This work is also being applied to soil remediation for removal of radionuclides and heavy metals and lanthanide processing and separation.

Luca Banfi (b. 1957) is presently Full professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Genova (Italy), Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry. His main research interests are in the field of organic synthesis: a) target oriented synthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients; b) target or diversity oriented synthesis of biologically active substances; c) stereoselective synthesis (also with the aid of biocatalytic methods); d) exploitation of multicomponent reactions in the diversity oriented synthesis of heterocycles. Luca Banfi carried out his academic studies at the University of Milano (advisor: Carlo Scolastico) and then he moved to Genova in 1983 in the group of Giuseppe Guanti, where he became associate professor in 1998 and full professor in 2000. In 1986-1987 he spent a sabbatical year in the U.S.A. in the group of Prof. Wlliam Roush at M.I.T. and Indiana University.

Geert-Jan Boons is the UGA Foundation Distinguished Professor in Biochemical Sciences at the Department of Chemistry and the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center (CCRC) of the University of Georgia (USA) and Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicinal and Biological Chemistry of Utrecht University (The Netherlands). He received a B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Leiden University (The Netherlands) and spent seven years in the UK, first as a postdoctoral fellow at Imperial College, London, and the University of Cambridge, and then as a lecturer and professor at the University of Birmingham. In 1998, he joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and CCRC of the University of Georgia, and in 2015 he accepted an academic appointment at Utrecht University. Among others, he has received the Creativity in Carbohydrate Science Award by the European Carbohydrate Association (2003), the Horace Isbell Award by the Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry of the American Chemical Society (ACS) (2004), the Roy L. Whistler International Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry by the International Carbohydrate Organization (ICO) (2014), and the Hudson Award (2015) and the Cope Mid Career Scholar Award from the ACS (2016). His research program emphasizes the chemical synthesis and biological functions of complex carbohydrates and glycoconjugates.

Gerhard Müller obtained his PhD in the group of Prof. Horst Kessler at the Technical University of Munich in 1993. During his career he held senior research scientist positions at Glaxo in Verona (Italy), Bayer AG in Leverkusen (Germany), and was section head chemistry at Organon (Nethelands). From 2003 to 2011 Gerhard served as Chief Scientific Officer at Axxima Pharmaceuticals, Munich and as Vice President Drug Discovery at GPC Biotech, Munich. Since 2011 he is heading Mercachem’s expansion into integrated drug discovery projects as Senior Vice President Medicinal Chemistry. Gerhard is a Board Member of the Swiss Chemical Society, Division Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology and organizer of the bi-annual Swiss Course on Medicinal Chemistry, held in Leysin, Switzerland. He is a recipient of the “Freidrich-Weygand-Prize” (Max-Bergmann-Society) for innovations in the field of medicinal chemistry on bioactive peptides and peptidomimetics, and is author of more than 75 peer-reviewed scientific publications and more than 40 patent applications.

Prof Laurence Harwood pursued his PhD studies at Manchester University under the direction of Professor Hamish Sutherland, and gained his doctorate in 1978. After postdoctoral study at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris with Professor Marc Julia from 1978 to 1980. He returned to Manchester, becoming a member of the chemistry faculty and, in 1983, moved to a Tutorial Fellowship and Lectureship at Merton College and the Dyson Perrins Laboratory, Oxford University. In 1996, he moved to the Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University of Reading. He has supervised more than 60 doctoral co-workers and has published more than 150 scientific articles and communications in peer-reviewed international journals and over 20 review articles, book chapters and patents. He is author or co-author of four textbooks, with translations into German, Japanese, Greek, Russian and Indonesian, including “Experimental Organic Chemistry which has sold almost 30,000 copies worldwide and is about to appear in its 3rd edition. He has been Synlett Regional Editor for Europe and Countries excluding the Americas and the Far East since 2001 and is a member of Editorial Advisory Boards for ARKIVOK, Current Organic Synthesis, Targets in Heterocyclic Systems, Jordanian Journal of Chemistry and Cogent Chemistry.

His research focuses on the development of new synthetic methods and their application to the synthesis of natural and unnatural products. There are projects underway with the aims of developing synthetic approaches towards amino acids and peptides with an increasing emphasis on chemistry at the biological interface. This work led to formation of a spin out company, TechnoPep, in 2010 of which he is Chief Scientific Officer. At the same the group also has interests in the materials area, working closely with academic institutes and industrial centres throughout Europe in the area of nuclear reprocessing, developing ligands that selectively remove the minor actinides from waste nuclear fuel to reduce the long term nuclear legacy of stored waste. This work is also being applied to soil remediation for removal of radionuclides and heavy metals and lanthanide processing and separation.

Gwilherm Evano was born in 1977 and studied chemistry at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and received his Ph.D. from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in 2002 under the supervision of Profs. François Couty and Claude Agami working on asymmetric synthesis. After postdoctoral studies with Prof. James S. Panek at Boston University where he worked on natural product synthesis, he joined the CNRS as Chargé de Recherche at the University of Versailles in 2004. He then moved to the Université Libre de Bruxelles as associate professor in 2012. He received several awards including the CNRS bronze medal and the Acros Prize in organic chemistry of the French Chemical Society. The research interest of his group are mainly focused on the development of new copper-catalyzed transformations, the chemistry of heteroatom-substituted alkynes, heterocyclic chemistry as well as the total synthesis of natural and/or biologically relevant products.

Floris Rutjes received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1993 under the supervision of Profs. W.N. Speckamp and H. Hiemstra. After a postdoc at the Scripps Research Institute with Prof. K.C. Nicolaou, and an assistant-professorship at the University of Amsterdam, he was appointed full professor in organic synthesis at Radboud University Nijmegen in 1999. His research interests comprise the application of catalysis in the synthesis of biologically relevant (heterocyclic) molecules, development of new bioorthogonal probes for chemical ligation, and chemical synthesis in microreactors. He has received several awards including the Gold Medal of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society (KNCV, 2002) and the AstraZeneca award for research in organic chemistry (2003).

Fernando López (A Estrada, 1975) obtained his PhD in 2003 at the University of Santiago de Compostela. He carried out two predoctoral stays at the ETH-Zürich (with Prof. Erick M. Carreira) and at Yale University (with Prof. John F. Hartwig), and a postdoctoral stay with Prof. Ben L. Feringa at the University of Groningen (Marie Curie Fellow, from 2003 to 2005). In 2006, he joined the University of Santiago de Compostela as a Ramón y Cajal Fellow and, in 2008, he was granted a Tenured Scientist position at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), joining the Instituto de Química Orgánica. Since 2012, he has been assigned at the CIQUS “Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials” (http://www.usc.es/ciqus/en), at the University of Santiago de Compostela where he works in collaboration with Professor J. L Mascareñas. His research interests are broadly centered on metal-promoted-catalysis, with a focus on cycloadditions, enantioselective processes and natural product synthesis.

He is the author of more than 60 publications and several patents. In 2009, he received the SIGMA-ALDRICH Young Chemists Award of the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry

Gianluca M. Farinola is Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at University of Bari. His research mainly focuses on synthesis of molecular and polymeric materials for applications in organic optoelectronics such as OLEDs, plastic solar cells and sensors. His recent research covers also hybrid materials obtained by combination of photo/electro-active molecules and biological structures. Gianluca M. Farinola got his PhD in 1997 under the supervision of Prof. Francesco Naso. He was appointed Assistant Professor in 1996, Associate Professor in 2002 and Full Professor of Organic Chemistry at University of Bari in 2015. In 2009 he joined the group of Prof. Luisa de Cola as visiting researcher at the University of Muenster (Germany). In 2013-2014 he was Invited Professor at the University of Strasbourg (France) and in 2015 at the University of Angers (France) in the group of Prof. Jean Roncali. In 2003 he was awarded the “Medaglia Ciamician” for young investigators of the Italian Chemical Society and in 2008 the Innovation in Organic Synthesis Award of the Interuniversitary Consortium CINMPIS.

Karl Gademann (1972) was educated at ETH Zürich and Harvard University, and worked with Prof. Dieter Seebach, Prof. Eric N. Jacobsen, and Prof. Erick M. Carreira. In summer 2015, Dr. Gademann moved to the University of Zurich as a full professor, and his previous professional affiliations include the ETH Zürich, the EPFL Lausanne, and the University of Basel. He has been elected to the board of the Swiss Academy of Sciences, and served in various administrative positions, such as dean of research at the University of Basel. Karl Gademann's work has been recognized by a number of international awards, including the Latsis prize, the Novartis Early Career Award, the Ruzicka Medal, The Liebig Lecture by the German Chemical Society, and the European Young Investigator Award.

Syuzanna R. Harutyunyan is currently a tenured Associate Professor in Synthetic Organic Chemistry at the University of Groningen. Before joining the University of Groningen to occupy a tenure-track position, she carried out research in Armenia, Russia, Poland, Belgium, and in the Netherlands. She worked for two years as a senior scientist at Tibotec-JanssenPharmaceutica-J&J (Belgium). The research was focused on the development of new patent-free metathesis catalysts, for synthesis of an anti-hepatitis drug and the implementation of new procedures to scale up production. During her post-doctoral with Prof. Ben Feringa (Netherlands) her research led to the discovery of the first enantioselective catalytic methodologies using Grignard reagents, and revealed the mechanisms of these reactions and application of these methodologies in total synthesis of natural products. As a visiting scientist in the group of Prof. K. Grela (Poland) she worked on the synthesis and the application of metathesis catalysts. In particular, she developed highly efficient ruthenium catalysts for metathesis, highly reactive alternatives to the well-known Grubbs catalysts. During her PhD research under supervision of Prof. Yu. N. Belokon (Russia) she developed new strategies for enantioselective synthesis of amino acids in phase-transfer-conditions. The developed methodologies have been applied for PET diagnostics. Syuzanna obtained her masters degree in pharmacology at Yerevan State University with Prof. A. Saghian

Scientific Vita
2013 – 2015 Dean of Research, Faculty of Chemistry, Georg-August-University Göttingen
2011 – 2013 Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry, Georg-August-University Göttingen
since 2007 Full Professor (W3) at the Georg-August-University Göttingen
2003 – 2007 Emmy Noether-Fellow (DFG): Independent research at the LMU München
2001 – 2003 Postdoctoral Studies with Prof. R. G. Bergman, UC Berkeley
1998 – 2001 Ph.D. thesis (Mentor: Prof. A. Fürstner), MPI Kohlenforschung in Mülheim/Ruhr
1993 –1998 Studies of Chemistry at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel

Research Interests
1) Homogeneous Catalysis, 2) Sustainable Organic Synthesis 3) Ligand Design 4) C–H Activation

Awards and Recognition
2015 Ta-Shue Chou Lectureship Award, Academia Sinica, Taiwan
2014 ISI Highly Cited Researcher, BASF lecture, UC Berkeley, USA
2012 ERC Independent Researcher Consolidator Grant
2011 AstraZeneca Excellence in Chemistry Award
2009 JSPS Visiting Professor Fellowship, Osaka University, Japan
2008 Goering Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA
2007 Dozentenstipendium (FCI), ADUC prize (GDCh), Visiting Professor Università Milano
2006 ORCHEM-Preis für Naturwissenschaftler (GDCh)

Géraldine Masson received a PhD in Organic Chemistry in 2003 from the Joseph Fourier University, France, under the supervision of Dr. Sandrine Py and Professor Yannick Vallée. In 2005, she moved to the University of Amsterdam as a Marie Curie postdoctoral research fellow where she worked with Professors Jan van Maarseveen and Henk Hiemstra. In 2005, she joined Professor Jieping Zhu’s research group at the Institute for the chemistry of natural substances (ICSN) as a CNRS research director, before starting her independent career in 2010. She was promoted to CNRS research director in 2014 and currently is a manager of the exploratory chemistry department at ICSN. Géraldine has been awarded the Diverchim Prize (Prize for Innovation, 2011) and the CNRS bronze medal (2013). Her research interests include development of new organocatalytic enantioselective reactions, novel synthetic methodologies, and photoredox catalysis, as well as their applications in syntheses of diverse natural and non-natural molecules displaying biologically activities.

Karl Anker Jørgensen received his PhD from Aarhus University in 1984. He was a post-doc with Prof. Roald Hoffmann, Cornell University, 1985. In 1985, he became an Assistant Professor at Aarhus University and in 1992 he was appointed as Professor. His research interests are the development, understanding and application of asymmetric catalysis.

Prof. Dr. Xiaoguang Lei obtained BSc degree in chemistry at Peking University in 2001. He then moved to Boston and conducted his PhD research studies on complex natural product synthesis and chemical biology from 2001 to 2006 under the supervision of Prof. John. A. Porco at Boston University. After two years (2006-2008) as a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Samuel J. Danishefsky’s group at Columbia University, Dr. Lei started his independent research at National Institute of Biological Sciences (NIBS) in China as a Principal Investigator and Director of Chemistry Center. In early 2014, he joined the faculty of college of chemistry and molecular engineering at Peking University. The major research areas of Prof. Lei's laboratory are: chemical biology, natural product synthesis and medicinal chemistry. Prof. Lei has received several academic awards including: Distinguished Lectureship Award by Chemical Society of Japan, Young Chemical Biologist Award by the International Chemical Biology Society (ICBS), Servier Young Investigator Award in Medicinal Chemistry, Thieme Chemistry Journal Award, and IUPAC Young Chemist Award.

Iain Coldham is a Professor of Synthetic Organic Chemistry at the University of Sheffield, UK.

His current research interests include the development of new synthetic methodology with chiral organometallic compounds, especially lithiated nitrogen-containing heterocycles, and the application of dipolar cycloaddition reactions to the synthesis of alkaloid natural products.

He studied at the University of Cambridge, UK and completed a PhD under the supervision of Dr Stuart Warren. He then carried out postdoctoral research with Professor Phil Magnus in Austin, Texas. In 1991 he was appointed to a lectureship in organic chemistry at the University of Exeter, UK. In 2003 he moved to a Readership at the University of Sheffield and was promoted to Professor in 2008.

Jérôme Waser was born in Sierre, Valais, Switzerland in 1977. He studied chemistry at ETH Zurich and obtained his Diploma in 2001. From 2002 to 2006, he was a PhD student at ETH Zurich with Prof. Erick M. Carreira. In 2006, he joined Prof. Barry M. Trost at Stanford University as a SNF postdoctoral fellow. From October 2007 to May 2014, he was a tenure-track assistant professor at EPF Lausanne (EPFL). Since June 2014, he has been associate professor at EPFL, working on the development and application of new methodologies for the synthesis of organic compounds, with focus on the use of hypervalent iodine reagents and strained rings. He is a recipient of the A. F. Schläfli award of the Swiss Academy of Sciences 2011, the ERC starting grant 2013 and the Werner prize of the Swiss Chemical Society 2014.

Valentine G. Nenajdenko was born in 1967 in Ivanovo, Russia. He graduated from Moscow State University (Lomonosov) in 1991. He received his Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Professor E.S. Balenkova in 1994 researching the synthesis and application of unsaturated CF3 ketones. In 2000 he received Dr. of Chemistry degree involving the chemistry of sulfonium and iminium salts. In 2003 he became full Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry of Moscow State University. Starting from 2014 he is head of Chair of Organic Chemistry at the same university. His scientific interests include organic synthesis, asymmetric catalysis, the chemistry of sulfur and fluorine containing compounds, heterocyclic chemistry, multicomponent reactions. He have been a supervisor of 15 postgraduate studies. Prof. Nenajdenko is head of the Scientific Committee and Jury of International Mendeleev Chemistry Olympiad. He was the winner of the Academiae Europeae Award in 1997, the Russian President Award in 1996, the Prize for the best scientific work at the Department of Chemistry of Moscow State University in 2001 and 2007, the Shuvalov Award in 2001, the Russian President Award in 2004, Russian Science Support Foundation in 2005, Moscow State University Awards in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Floris Rutjes received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1993 under the supervision of Profs. W.N. Speckamp and H. Hiemstra. After a postdoc at the Scripps Research Institute with Prof. K.C. Nicolaou, and an assistant-professorship at the University of Amsterdam, he was appointed full professor in organic synthesis at Radboud University Nijmegen in 1999. His research interests comprise the application of catalysis in the synthesis of biologically relevant (heterocyclic) molecules, development of new bioorthogonal probes for chemical ligation, and chemical synthesis in microreactors. He has received several awards including the Gold Medal of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society (KNCV, 2002) and the AstraZeneca award for research in organic chemistry (2003).

Prof. Dr. Thomas E. Nielsen is Director of Protein & Peptide Chemistry at Novo Nordisk. He heads a department devoted the design and synthesis of peptide and protein drug candidates to treat diabetes, hemophilia and growth disorders. He is affiliated as professor at the Department of Immunology and Microbiology, University of Copenhagen. Prior to his present position, he was professor of chemical biology and organic chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, Technical University of Denmark (2008-2014). He holds a PhD in natural product total synthesis (with Professor David Tanner), and has carried out postdoctoral studies at the Carlsberg Laboratory (with Professor Morten Meldal, 2003-2005) and Harvard University/Broad institute of Harvard and MIT (with Professor Stuart L. Schreiber, 2006-2007), working within various areas of chemical biology research. He was the co-founder and deputy director of the Danish Center for Antimicrobial Research (2009-2014), where he was responsible for the development of antimicrobial small molecules, bioactive materials, and assay technologies. Central themes in his research activities comprise organic synthesis, miniaturized screening technologies, functional materials, small molecules, peptides and proteins to probe biological phenomena, and the development of new medicines against cancer, hemophilia, diabetes and antimicrobial infectious disease. He has received several national and international scientific awards and is the co-author of more than 80 journal publications and patents.

Marty completed his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Johns Hopkins University in 1998, a Ph.D. in organic synthesis at Harvard University in 2003, and an M.D. at Harvard Medical School in 2005. He is now a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Marty’s research focuses on small molecules that replicate the functions of missing proteins, thereby operating as prostheses on the molecular scale. To enable such studies, Marty's group created a machine that builds molecules from pre-fabricated building blocks. This advance helps make the process of complex small molecule synthesis as simple, efficient, and flexible as possible. Marty is the recipient of a number of honors and awards, including the 2014 Thieme-IUPAC Prize in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, The 2014 Hirata Gold Medal from Japan, the 2013 American Chemical Society Elias J. Corey Award for Outstanding Original Contribution in Organic Synthesis by a Young Investigator.

Karl Anker Jørgensen received his PhD from Aarhus University in 1984. He was a post-doc with Prof. Roald Hoffmann, Cornell University, 1985. In 1985, he became an Assistant Professor at Aarhus University and in 1992 he was appointed as Professor. His research interests are the development, understanding and application of asymmetric catalysis.