Erik F. J. de Vries graduated in chemistry from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, in 1991 and obtained his Ph.D. in natural sciences at the same university in 1995. In 1996, Erik F. J. de Vries was appointed as a radiochemist at the University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands, where he is still employed. Since 2007, Erik F. J. de Vries has been the head of research at the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. He was appointed as a full professor of translational molecular imaging, in particular Positron Emission Tomography, at the University of Groningen in 2019. His research mainly focuses on the development and application of radiopharmaceuticals for PET imaging of pathophysiological processes and drug targets in tumors and the brain. Erik F. J. de Vries was also a guest lecturer in molecular and diagnostic imaging at the University Sapienza in Rome, Italy from 2007 to 2013 and a visiting scientist at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, between 2014 and 2016.