Elbertus Kruiswijk was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands in 1968 and studied Chemistry at the University of Utrecht. He graduated in the Metal-mediated organic synthesis group of Gerard van Koten in 1996. He later moved to the University of Wales in Cardiff where in 1999 he received his PhD in Organic Chemistry under the supervision of Mark Elliott. He then spent a year as a post-doctoral Research Assistant in Ben Feringa’s group at Groningen, The Netherlands. From March 2001 until August 2004, he has been involved as a post-doctoral Research Associate on a combined project between DSTL, Porton Down and the Bacterial Toxins group School of Crystallography, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences (David Moss and Howard Carless) at the University of London, Birkbeck College. In July 2005, Bert graduated as a secondary school teacher from Swansea Institute of Higher Education. In August 2005 he started, together with a silent partner, 'The Chemical Bookstore'.