It is rare to meet a man whose experience in science is as wide and deep as that of Prof. Michał Kleiber. In an interview for this issue of The Polish Science Voice, Prof. Kleiber-the president of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), a computer scientist by profession and a former science minister who now heads the most distinguished organization of Polish researchers-speaks about the opportunities and challenges ahead for Polish science.

Speaking about science, especially Polish research, which has been underfunded for decades, one has to talk about money, the money we did not have in the past and the money we will have, and how to utilize it most effectively. During the course of the next seven years Poland is to receive around zl.500 billion in funding from the European Union. "Such a huge opportunity-with so much money available for modernization-will never come again in my lifetime or in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. We have an opportunity of waking up in a completely different country in seven years' time," says Prof. Kleiber. "The most important thing is to give the most talented people opportunities to develop in Poland."

As for young talent, we also report in this issue on the achievements of the University of Warsaw, which now tops the most prestigious league table of institutions educating the world's best computer programmers, TopCoder. Warsaw University student Tomasz Czajka has won the TopCoder individual competition three times in a row. Students from the Department of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics took the gold and silver at the 2005 ACM Central European Programming Contest in Budapest. And the university won its second world championship at the IBM-sponsored ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest in Tokyo this year.

This large university with more than 64,000 students has a great development program. The university is in talks with the city authorities as part of the Warsaw Science Consortium, which deals with preparations for the construction of the Warsaw Technology Park.

As usual, The Polish Science Voice also provides specialist reports about Polish scientific and technological achievements. One of these concerns bacterial cellulose dressings.

Researchers from the Institute of Technical Biochemistry at the ŁódĽ University of Technology have invented a method for making "bioactive" dressings produced by bacteria. The bacterial cellulose obtained in this way has many unique properties, which means it can be used as a hi-tech dressing for injuries. Clinical trials carried out in Poland's largest burns treatment hospital, in the city of Siemianowice ¦l±skie, have shown that such cellulose dressings not only promote healing of wounds and reduce pain but also improve the appearance of the tissue which is formed under the dressing. "We are the first scientific center in Poland to conduct research on the biosynthesis of bacterial cellulose and its application," says Prof. Stanisław Bielecki, vice-president of the ŁódĽ University of Technology and a pioneer in this field of research.

We also report on Polish contributions to Nobel Prizes. While no Polish scientist claimed a Nobel this year, one of the winners is of Polish extraction and two others used help from a Polish colleague.