He was educated at Oxford University, where he received his PhD in 1989 under the mentorship of Raymond Dwek, an eminent early leader in glycobiology.

[full citation needed] After graduation he helped establish the first commercially focused effort in glycotechnology: Oxford Glycosystems, Ltd.[2] He subsequently moved to Toronto, Canada, to broaden his interest in glycosyltransferase and spent his postdoctoral time with Dr. Harry Schachter at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, and two years later across the street with Dr. Jim Dennis[3] at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute.

The initial purpose of the Warren Workshop series on Glycoconjugate Analysis was to bring together concerned analysts in the field to discuss the various methodologies in use with the aim to share and appraise protocols for carbohydrate sequencing.

Discussion among the experts in the discipline would hopefully lead to establishing a working framework and course of action to bring unanimity to the goals and requirements of glycoconjugate structural analysis.

The growing need, aspirations of automation and high throughput analysis, made open discussion among experts very timely and important.