Prof. Jan Potempa, completed his PhD, and DSc in biochemistry and molecular biology in 1982 and 1993, respectively, at the Institute of Molecular Biology (UJ, Krakow, Poland). During his long-lasting collaboration with the Department of Biochemistry, the University of Georgia (Athens, GA, USA), first as a post-doc and then as a senior research associate, he becomes an expert in the field of regulation of proteolysis in homeostasis and diseases. Since 1995, he has been serving as the head of the Department of Microbiology at the Faculty of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Biotechnology (UJ), where he has been a Full Professor (since 2005). Concurrently, he holds the position of Research Professor and Distinguished Academic Scholar at the University of Louisville School of Dentistry (Louisville, KY, USA). He also holds a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Lund (Sweden) and Amsterdam University (Netherlands). He received the most prestigious awards for scientific achievements in Poland for the discovery and characterization of gingipains as virulence factors and targets for drug development to treat periodontitis (Foundation for Polish Science Prize, 2011) and characterization of the potential role of oral pathogens in the etiology of systemic diseases, including Alzheimer Disease (Heisig Award, 2021). Currently, Prof. Potempa’s investigations are focused on virulence factors of bacterial pathogens that play essential roles in the dysregulation of several physiological pathways and evasion of host immunity, especially in the context of periodontitis. To date, Prof. Potempa has contributed to >450 publications in peer-reviewed journals and 65 book chapters and reports in meeting proceedings cited >25,500 times (Web of Science, h-index = 81).