Mario Poljak, MD, PhD, specialist in clinical microbiology, is a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and Head of Laboratory for Molecular Microbiology at Institute of Microbiology and Immunology at Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He was President of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) from 2016-2018 and member of ESCMID Exective Committee from 2012-2020. ESCMID has 9,000+ members from all European countries and all continents and is organising the largest conference in the field of infection in the World - ECCMID - with 15,000+ delegates. He was member of the ECCMID Program Committee from 2010-2020. Professor Poljak´s laboratory offers 80 different molecular and serological assays and is also working on the development of new molecular diagnostic methods, improvement and evaluation of virological methods/assays. The research of Prof. Poljak and his co-workers is focused on all diagnostic aspects and genetic heterogeneity of human papillomaviruses, human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis C virus, hepatitis B virus, coronaviruses, H. pylori and M. tuberculosis, etiopathogenesis of head and neck carcinomas, etiopathogenesis and natural history of HPV-related benign tumors and intrahospital and unusual transmission of blood-born microorganisms He is author of 378 original research or review articles published in PubMed-cited journals. His papers have been cited more than 11,200 times (Hirsch index = 50; Hirsch i10 index = 224). As invited speaker he gave more than 350 lectures at international and national scientific and professional meetings. He is Editor of Acta Dermatovenerologica APA, Associate Editor of Journal of Clinical Virology and Editorial Board member of Journal of Clinical Microbiology, AIDS Reviews and Papillomavirus Research. He serves as peer reviewer for more than 80 scientific journals. He was supervisor of 31 PhD thesis in the field of clinical microbiology and in 2016 was awarded as Doctoral Mentor of the Year in Slovenia. Professor Poljak is recipient of the prestigious career achievement award from the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology (PASCV), The PASCV Diagnostic Virology Award 2018 which acknowledges an individual whose contributions to viral diagnosis have had a major impact on the discipline. He was a member of the IDWeek Program Committee from 2018-2020.