Jens Kurreck is full Professor for Applied Biochemistry at the Berlin University of Technology (TUB), Germany. He studied biochemistry and philosophy at the Free University of Berlin (FUB) and completed his PhD at the TUB in 1998. A postdoc at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ, USA, was followed by an assistant professorship at the FUB. From 2007 to 2009 he was Professor of Nucleic Acid Technologies at the University of Stuttgart before attaining his current position in Berlin. In 2012 he was visiting professor at the Dongseo University in Busan, Korea. His research focuses on RNA technologies, pain research and virology. He has published more than 70 papers in peer-reviewed journals and edited the book "Therapeutic Oligonucleotides". In 2005 he received the Young Scientist Lectureship Award of the European Society for Neurochemistry and a prize for his excellent teaching.

Cy A. Stein is Professor of Oncology and Experimental Therapeutics at the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, CA, USA. He received a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University and the M.D. degree at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY, in 1982. After appointments as clinical associate and assistant professor at Columbia University, he became Professor of Medicine and Molecular Pharmacology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York (2003-2012). At the same time, he was Attending Physician and Director of Medical Genitourinary Oncology at the Montefiore Medical Center. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and received numerous awards, among them the Clinical Career Development Award of the American Cancer Society in addition to a Faculty of 1000 Biologists Selection.