Roger A. Garrett is a Professor at Copenhagen University, where he leads the Danish Archaea Center. He has worked previously at different European Universities and Research Institutes including: University College, London, the MRC Biophysics Unit at Kings College, London, the University of Leiden, the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Genetics, Berlin and the University of Aarhus, as well as at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He became deeply engaged with Archaea soon after their initial discovery, through a shared interest (with Professor Carl Woese) in 16S ribosomal RNA structure and function, and he has since made significant and diverse contributions to the molecular biology and genomics of the Archaea.

Hans-Peter Klenk teaches microbial genomics at Darmstadt Technical University and is the founder and general manager of e.gene Biotechnologie, located in the Munich area. He has more than 25 years of experience in Archaea research, starting with the molecular biology and evolution of the archaeal transcription apparatus (with Professor Wolfram Zillig), and later pioneering archaeal genomics in various positions at Dalhousie University, Halifax (Canada), The Institute for Genomics Research, Rockville (USA), and the University of Goettingen (Germany). He has coorganized more than 25 national and international meetings, including Archaea – The First Generation in 2005.