Ratmir Derda received his undergraduate degree in Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 2001, Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008, under the supervision of Laura Kiessling, and postdoctoral training at Harvard University under the supervision of George Whitesides and Donald Ingber. He joined University of Alberta in 2011 as an Assistant Professor in Chemistry. In 2012, he became a principal investigator at the Alberta Glycomics Centre. In 2017 he founded two companies--48HourDiscovery INC and SyntArray LLC--to translate genetically-encoded libraries and other technologies developed in Derda Group. His notable awards include Rising Star in Chemical Biology from the International Chemical Biology Society (2016); Young Investigator Award from the Boulder Peptide Society (2014); Canadian Rising Star in Global Health (2011).