XIAO-TIAN LIANG received his BS degree from the National Central University (China) in 1946 and his PhD degree from the University of Washington at Seattle (USA) in 1951. After postdoctoral work at Harvard University, he joined the faculty of the Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. In 1980, he was elected as an Academician of Academia Sinica (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and has served on the advisory editorial boards of Tetrahedron and Tetrahedron Letters, among other scientific journals. He coauthored more than 300 scientific papers and reviews, and has written