Editorial [ Hot Topic:Polish (Guest Editor: G. Grynkiewicz & K. Koziak)]

An idea to prepare a Special Issue of Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology containing results which are overwhelmingly of Polish origin may seem strange or even inappropriate in times of international consortia uniting individual and national efforts to challenge the most important scientific problems of the new millennium. Contemporary Poland has not been recognized for a particularly strong position in life sciences. Nevertheless, Polish biologists and biotechnologists feel well connected to deeply rooted tradition of high quality university teaching in home country, which produced such towering figures in biomedical field as Marceli Nencki1, Kazimierz Funk2, Rudolf Weigl3, Ludwik Fleck4, Ludwik Hirszfeld5, Waclaw Szybalski6 and Hilary Koprowski7. Amidst turmoil of the Poland's lost independence, the first and then the second world war some of the original thinkers and discoverers who laid foundations to modern biotechnology were fortunate enough to continue their research in the Western world. It is rewarding to observe that their pronounced interest in life sciences in general and medical and biochemical education in their home country in particular, has borne some fruit also in the 21st century, when world war wounds are finally healing and Europe is largely united. We are very grateful to Professor Zeno Földes-Papp for his initiative to edit the ‘Polish’ issue of the Current Pharmaceutical Biotechnology. Having in our disposal, as Guest Editors, a handful of original contributions chiefly from Polish laboratories, which were qualified as interesting and valuable by international reviewers we are proud to be able to present this collection to the faithful readers of CPB. We did our best to present an accurate representation of pharmaceutical biotechnology in Poland. We hope this unconventional move will help serve well to further enhance and inspire fruitful interactions between Polish and foreign scientists. Last but not least, we wish to thank our colleagues who so positively responded to the invitation to publish in the Issue.