Johannes Buchner holds the chair of Biotechnology at the Technical University of Munich (Germany). He studied Biology at the University of Regensburg and afterwards joined the group of Ira Pastan at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda (United States). Returning to Germany, he took a up junior group leader position at Regensburg before becoming full professor at Munich in 1998.
Professor Buchner's research is centered on the folding process of proteins and its efficiency in vitro and in vivo. To improve the efficiency of protein production, he has pioneered the biotechnological use of chaperones and holds several patents in this area of research.

Thomas Kiefhaber is Professor of Biophysical Chemistry at the Biozentrum, University of Basel (Switzerland). He studied Biology at the University of Regensburg (Germany) and, after completing his PhD in Biophysical Chemistry, spent two years as a post-doc with R. L. Baldwin at Stanford University. Since 1993 he is a member of the faculty of Basel University and was named professor for Biophysical Chemistry in 1999.
Professor Kiefhaber's research is centered on the investigation of kinetics and mechanism of protein folding with biophysical methods.