Born in 1947, Masakatsu Shibasaki gained his PhD from the University of Tokyo in 1974. Since 1991 he is professor at the University of Tokyo. Masakatsu Shibasaki has received many awards such as the Fluka Prize (Reagent of the Year), the Elsevier Award for Inventiveness in Organic Chemistry, the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan Award, the ACS Award (Arthur C. Cope Senior Scholar Award), and the National Prize of Purple Ribbon.
Professor Shibasaki's research interests include asymmetric catalysis, including asymmetric Heck reactions and reactions promoted by asymmetric bifunctional complexes, as well as the medicinal chemistry of biologically significant compounds.

Yoshinori Yamamoto was born in Kobe, Japan, and received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Osaka University. In 1986 he moved to Tohoku University to take up his present position, Professor of Chemistry. He was awarded the Chemical Society of Japan Award for Young Chemists (1976), the Chemical Society of Japan Award (1996), and the Humboldt Research Award (2002). He is the Regional Editor of Tetrahedron Letters and Volume Editor of Science of Synthesis, and he was the President of the International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry (2000-2001). He has a wide range of research interests in synthetic organic and organometallic chemistry. His recent work focused on the use of transition-metal complexes and Lewis acids as catalytic reagents in organic synthesis and synthesis of complex natural products.