Born in 1965, Alexei Demchenko gained his MSc in chemical engineering from Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology, Russia, in 1988, before joining the Zelinski Institute of Organic Chemistry, at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. It was here, under Professor Kochetkov, that he took his first steps in researching carbohydrate synthesis. In 1993 he was awarded a PhD for his work on the development of thiocyanate methodology for stereospecific glycosylation and, after two post-doctoral years under Kochetkov, he joined Geert-Jan Boons' group at the University of Birmingham, UK, as a BBSRC post-doctoral research fellow. In 1998 he moved with Professor Boons to the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center at the University of Georgia as a research associate, where his research focused on the synthesis of complex oligosaccharides for immunological studies and the exploration of chemical O-sialylation. In 2001 he joined the University of Missouri St. Louis as an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry. Professor Demchenko is a recipient of the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, and has co-authored over 50 articles, reviews, and book chapters. His current research interests are in the field of synthetic carbohydrate chemistry.