Professor Ari M.P.Koskinen was born on September 22, 1956 in Finland. He received his M.Sc. (Chem. Eng.) in 1979 (with professor T. Hase, development of the synthesis of alkyl tert-alkyl ethers for anti-knock agents), Licentiate in Technology in 1982 and Doctor of Technology in 1983 (with professor M. Lounasmaa, methodology development on the modified Polonovski reaction for indole alkaloid synthesis), all at the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland. After postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley (professor Henry Rapoport 1983-85 and 1987-88, total synthesis of anatoxin-a, and conformationally constrained peptidomimetics) he accepted an appointment as a Project Leader in New Drug Development at Orion Corporation – Fermion, Finland (1985-1987). His research group was among the first in Scandinavia to adopt computer aided drug design (QSAR and CoMFA) as well as computerized database handling protocols in new lead identification. Returning to the Academia, he joined the University of Surrey, England, as a lecturer in 1989. He was then appointed as Professor of Chemistry (especially Synthetic Organic Chemistry) at the University of Oulu, Finland in 1992, and transferred to his current position at the Helsinki University of Technology in August, 1999 as Professor of Organic Chemistry (the old Gustav Komppa chair). Prof. Koskinen is a member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters since 2003. He is the author or co-author of some 190 publications, ten patents and two books.

His research ointerests include the development of novel synthetic methods especially in the field of enantioselective synthesis. A long standing project has centered on the transfer chirality information to new stereocenters on the synthesized molecule utilizing only the existing chiral information in the starting material (internal asymetric induction). The starting materials are selected from readily available, renewable natural compounds (amino acids), and the target compounds are natural  products or their analoges with biological significance. Over the years, a number of alkaloids, sphingosine like compounds and imino sugars have been synthesized.

I have supervised a total of 38 post doctoral researchers during my career as a professor (first at the University of Oulu, and since 2000 at TKK/Aalto). They are: