Gregory A Petsko studied chemistry and classics as an undergraduate at Princeton University before going to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar to work for his PhD with David Phillips. He then pursued his interest in the mechanism of enzyme catalysis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he taught courses in chemistry and detective fiction, before moving to Brandeis where he is currently Director of the Rosenstiel Center and has extended his research interests to include the use of yeast genetics to study the unfolded protein response pathway, and the mechanism of action of the ABC transporter proteins.

Dagmar Ringe graduated in chemistry from Barnard College, Columbia, and took her PhD in bioorganic chemistry from Boston University. She then pursued her research interest in the study of enzyme catalysis by X-ray crystallography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before moving to Brandeis where she is Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry and where the principal focus of her research is on structure-function relationships in enzymes of particular industrial and pharmaceutical importance.