Geneticist and molecular biologist, professor of medical sciences, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, director of the PAU Faculty of Medicine, head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Jagiellonian University Medical College. He published as author or co-author nearly three hundred original research papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He was the author of the discovery of a genetic polymorphism of the promoter region of the leukotriene C4 synthase gene. He was instrumental in establishing a link between genetic overexpression caused by the presence of an altered allele of this gene and overproduction of cysteinyl leukotrienes in bronchial asthma. For the latter work, he and Andrzej Szczeklik received the 1997 Lancet Invesigators Award from the journal The Lancet.