Geert-Jan Boons received a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands under the direction of Prof. Jacques van Boom. He spent seven years in the UK, first as a postdoctoral fellow at Imperial College and the University of Cambridge in the research group of Prof. Steven Ley, and then as a lecturer and professor at the University of Birmingham. In 1998, he joined the faculty of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center of the University of Georgia (USA), where currently he is a Distinguished Professor in Biochemical Science. He holds a joint appointment at Utrecht University in the Netherlands where is Professor and Chair of Department Chemical Biology and Drug Development. He was the recipient of the Horace Isbell and Claude S. Hudson Award by the Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry of ACS, the Roy L. Whistler International Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry from the International Carbohydrate Organization and the Arthur Cope Scholarship award from ACS. A hallmark of his research is a seamless integration of method development for complex carbohydrate and glycoconjugate synthesis, application of the new methods for the preparation of biologically important targets, and innovative use of the resulting compounds in biological studies