Professor von Itztein’s career as a carbohydrate scientist began in 1986, when he joined the Melbourne team working on influenza drug discovery. His success in 1989 in the design and synthesis of zanamivir, now marketed under the name Relezna, was achieved at a time when there were few examples of inhibitor-design based on the three-dimensional structure of an enzyme. He was jointly awarded the Australia Prize for pharmaceutical design in 1996, and in 2001 received the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Forschungpreis for foreign scholars. He has published and patented extensively in glycoscience, and established strong collaborations locally and internationally.