Koen Rijpkema studied Chemistry at Leiden University, specializing in Organic Chemistry. His thesis on the synthesis of carbohydrate analogues was supervised by both Prof. Dr. Codée and Dr. Filippov of the Bio-Organic Synthesis group. He subsequently started a PhD at the Bio-Organic Synthesis group under the supervision of Dr. Filippov in January of 2021. His current research concerns the synthesis of structural analogues of adenosine diphosphate ribose (ADPr) as competitive inhibitors for viral hydrolases.