Ratmir Derda received his undergraduate degree in Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and postdoctoral training at Harvard University. He joined University of Alberta in 2011 where he is now a full Professor of Chemistry. In 2017 he founded a candian biotechnology company 48HourDiscovery INC where he is currently a CEO. His recent awards include the IntelliSyn Pharma Research Excellence Award (2022) and Melanie O'Neill Young Investigator Award in Biological Chemistry (2018) from Canadian Society of Chemistry, David Gin New Investigator Award in carbohydrate chemistry from American Chemical Society (2017).