Janos Fischer is a Senior Research Scientist at Richter Plc., Budapest, Hungary. He received his MSc and PhD degrees in organic chemistry from the Eotvos University of Budapest under Professor A. Kucsman. Between 1976 and 1978, he was a Humboldt Fellow at the University of Bonn under Professor W. Steglich. He has worked at Richter Plc. since 1981 where he participated in the research and development of leading cardiovascular drugs in Hungary. He is the author of some 100 patents and scientific publications. In 2004, he was elected as a Titular member of the Chemistry and Human Health Division of IUPAC. He received an honorary professorship at the Technical University of Budapest.

David Rotella is the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at Montclair State University. He earned a B.S. Pharm. degree at the University of Pittsburgh (1981) and a Ph.D. (1985) at The Ohio State University with Donald. T. Witiak. After postdoctoral studies in organic chemistry at Penn State University with Ken S. Feldman, he became an assistant professor at the University of Mississippi. Before accepting his current position he worked at Cephalon, Bristol-Myers, Lexicon and Wyeth where he was involved in neurodegeneration, schizophrenia, cardiovascular and metabolic disease drug discovery projects.