Kyozo Ogura was born in 1933 in Mie, Japan, and graduated from Tohoku University in 1957, where he also obtained his doctorate in 1962. He became a research associate in 1962 at Tohoku University and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University with Professor Konrad Bloch (1965−1967). He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1974 and to Professor in 1980 at the Chemical Research Institute of Non-Aqueous Solutions (renamed as Institute for Chemical Reaction Science in 1991), Tohoku University. He has been involved in enzymatic studies of isoprenoid biosynthesis. He received the Japanese Biochemical Society Award for Young Biochemists in 1972, Oence Lager Award of the Chemical Society of Japan in 1986, and Japan Synthetic Organic Chemistry Society Award in 1996. In 1997 he retired from Tohoku University and was given the title of Emeritus Professor of the same University.

Tanetoshi Koyama was born in 1945 in Shizuoka, Japan, and graduated from Tohoku University in 1968, where he also obtained his doctorate in 1973. After postdoctoral work at Stanford University with E. E. van Tamelen, he joined the Chemical Research Institute of Non-Aqueous Solutions, Tohoku University as an research associate in 1974. He was promoted to Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tohoku University in 1994 and then, to Professor of the Institute for Chemical Reaction Science, Tohoku University in 1997. His interest focus on molecular mechanisms of enzyme catalysis especially on enzymes related with isoprenoid biosynthesis.