Takeshi Toru is Full Professor at the Department of Applied Chemistry at the Nagoya Institute of Technology. He was vistiting professor at the Scripps Research Institute, the RWTH Aachen and others. He is interested in new synthetic methods, especially new asymmetric reactions involving heteroatoms, carbanions, and radical reactions, bioactive compounds and the development of new methods for the synthesis of heterocycles. Beside a number of publications, he has edited also a book in the field of enantioselective synthesis.

Carsten Bolm became Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Marburg (Germany) in 1993, and since 1996 he is full professor for Organic Chemistry at the RWTH Aachen University (Germany). He helt visiting professorships at the universities in Madison, Wisconsin (USA), Paris (France), Florence (Italy), Milan (Italy), and Namur (Belgium). His list of awards include the Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz prize, the ADUC-Jahrespreis for habilitands, the annual prize for Chemistry of the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, the Otto-Klung prize, the Otto-Bayer award, and a fellowship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.