Bogdan Czerniak, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor of Pathology, Department of Pathology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (UTMDACC) and holds the Nathan W. Lassiter Distinguished Chair in Urology. Dr. Czerniak received his M.D., Ph.D. degrees in Pathology at the Pomeranian Medical Academy in Szczecin, Poland where he completed his first residency. On arrival in the US, he completed his second residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center followed by a fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Center in New York City. Since his appointment as Assistant Professor in 1993, he has distinguished himself in both diagnostic Pathology and multi-institutional research related to both bone and the genitourinary tract systems. His research has provided groundbreaking information on molecular mechanisms of cancer initiation and resulted in the formulation of the highly original concept of forerunner genes acting as the ignition switch for cancer development. He received multiple NCI/NIH RO1 and U01 grants awarded for the study of the molecular biology of bladder cancer. He has been honored with several prestigious institutional, national and international awards, including the Southern Medical Association Moreton Award for Original Research and the 2012 Nathan Kaufman Award and Lectureship from The United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology and the Leopold G. Koss Medal in 2024 from the International Society of Urological Pathology. He has authored over 300 peer-reviewed articles, many chapters in books and textbooks. Many of these papers focus on the biology of bladder cancer and were published in high impact journals. He is a significant contributor to and co-author of two signature papers on molecular characterizations of bladder cancer as a member of the TCGA Analytical Group published in Nature and Cell.