Maurice Goeldner was born in 1945 in Strasbourg, France, where he studied chemistry at the Université Louis Pasteur. He received his doctorate in 1972 under the direction of Dr.J.F.Biellmann, and during this time he conducted research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Strasbourg. After posdoctoral studies with S. Wolfe (Kingston,Canada) and A. Eschenmoser (ETH, Zürich, Switzerland), he returned to Strasbourg to codirect, with his friend Christian Hirth, the Laboratoire de Chimie Bioorganique. In 1983 he was appointed Professor of Organic Chemistry at the faculty Pharmacie. His research interests focus on bioorganic chemistry, in particular, the structural determinants of membrane receptors investigated by site-directed labeling methods.

Richard Givens is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, where has been on the faculty since 1967. He received a bachelor's degree from Marietta College in Ohio and a doctorate in chemistry from the University Wisconsin, Madison. Professor Givens is an expert in mechanistic organic photochemistry, the design and synthesis of "caged" reagents or photoremovable protecting groups, photoactivated cross-linking reagents for collagen, and the mechanism and bioanalytical applications of chemiluminescence. He has published more than 100 papers and patents in these areas. He has received the Byron T. Shutz Award for Distinguished Teaching (1987) and the Mortar Board Teaching Award at KU and was awarded an honorary D.Sc. degree from Marietta College.