David Chen was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1976. He received his B.Sc. (Honors) from the University of Auckland (1997) and Ph.D. under the supervision of Professor Ian Paterson at Cambridge University (1998- 2001). After postdoctoral training under the direction of Professor K.C. Nicolaou at the Scripps Research Institute (2002-2003), he joined the Merck Research Laboratory at Rahway-New Jersey as a Senior Research Chemist (2003-2005). In March 2005, he was appointed as the first Principal Investigator of the Chemical Synthesis Laboratory (CSL) @ Biopolis under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore. During his tenure in Singapore, he also held an Adjunct Associate Professorship at the division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry (CBC), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. In 2011, he relocated to Seoul, South Korea, where he was appointed as Professor of organic chemistry at the Seoul National University.