François Diederich was born in 1952 in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. He received his doctoral degree in 1979 from the University of Heidelberg and subsequently pursued postdoctoral studies at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). After his Habilitation at the Max-Planck-Institut für medizinische Forschung, he joined in 1985 the Faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA where he became full professor in 1989. In 1992, he moved to the ETH Zürich as a member of the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences. His research interests, documented in more than 420 publications, span from medicinal chemistry, with a focus on molecular recognition studies, to advanced fullerene and acetylene-based materials with novel optoelectronic properties.

Rik R. Tykwinski received his BS degree from the University of Minnesota-Duluth and his PhD from the University of Utah. After postdoctoral studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich (1994-97), he joined the faculty of the University of Alberta in 1997 and is now an Associate Professor of Chemistry. He has published over 75 research papers, most of which describe the synthesis and unique properties of acetylenic molecules.

Peter J. Stang is professor at the university of Utah. Beside many other prices he has received the American Chemical Society George A. Olah Award in Hydrocarbon Chemistry, 2003, the Robert W. Parry Teaching Award in Chemistry, 2000 and the American Chemical Soc. James Flack Norris Award in Physical-Organic Chemistry in 1998. Stang is the author or co-author of 370 scientific publications, including six monographs and two dozen reviews.