Eugene A. Permyakov received his PhD in physics andmathematics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in1976 and defended his Doctor of Science dissertation in biology atMoscow State University in 1989. From 1970 to 1994, he worked atthe Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Bio-physics of theRussian Academy of Sciences. Since 1994 he has been the Director ofthe Institute for Biological Instrumentation of the Russian Academyof Sciences. He is known for his work on metal binding proteins andthe intrinsic fluorescence method. His primary research focus isthe study of physico-chemical and functional properties of metalbinding (especially calcium-binding) proteins. Robert H. Kretsinger received his PhD in biophysics atthe Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the supervision ofAlex Rich in 1964. In 1967 he set up a protein crystallography labin the Department of Biology at the University of Virginia, wherehepresently teaches, and determined the crystal structure ofparvalbumin as well as describing the EF-hand domain in 1971. Hehas subsequently investigated the structures, functions, andevolution of various EF-hand homologs, along with other proteinfamilies. From 1978 to 1995, he directed a national facility tobuild multiwire area detectors for x-ray diffraction and to collectdata from protein crystals.