Alexander Spirin is a Professor at the Moscow State University, and the director of the Protein Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Pushchino, Russia. He is one of the pioneers in the biochemical analysis of protein synthesis and has worked in the field for more than 40 years, performing the first-ever in vitro synthesis of proteins by using ribosome components. Professor Spirin has received many honors for his scientific achievements, including the Hans Adolf Krebs Medal, and is the author of several books on ribosomes and protein synthesis.

James Swartz is Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, California, USA. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he has pioneered protein synthesis on an industrial scale while working for the companies Eli Lilly and Genentech. He is a leading expert on the biotechnological synthesis of mammalian proteins using bacterial whole cells and cell extracts.