Dr MacKeigan (shown right) received his PhD in microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2002. He then served as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr John Blenis in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. In 2004, he joined Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts as an investigator and project leader in the Molecular and Developmental Pathways expertise platform. Dr MacKeigan's research revolves around the role of phosphatases in cell survival and cancer. Dr MacKeigan joined Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) in June 2006 as a scientific investigator.

Dr Duesbery received his BSc (1987) in biology from Queen's University, Canada and both his MSc (1990) and PhD (1996) degrees in zoology from the University of Toronto, Canada. Before his appointment as a scientific investigator at VARI in April 1999, he was a postdoctoral fellow in Dr George Vande Woude's laboratory at the National Cancer Institute, Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center, Maryland. Dr Duesbery's research focuses mainly on mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase signaling in development and disease. He was promoted to senior scientific investigator and appointed deputy director of research operations in 2006.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.