Cover legend: Adel K. El-Naggar; a member of The Editorial Academy of The International Journal of Oncology

ʻIt is difficult for someone to speak at length about himself without vanity, I shall be shortʼ. David Hume 

Dr El-Naggar is the Katherine P. O'Connor Professor of Head and Neck Pathology at the Department of Pathology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He has earned his M.D. degree from Ain Shams Medical School in Cairo Egypt and completed a year of internship and three-year residency in Clinical Pathology at the same institution. He subsequently embarked on a Ph.D. degree at the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit-3 in Cairo, Egypt under the guidance of the late Gene I. Higachi, M.D., Ph.D. in cellular immunity of intra-cellular organisms. 

 Dr El-Naggar pursued post-graduate medical research training in the USA, as Senior Research Associate, in the Department of Medicine, the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for 2 years and an additional year of research in the same field at the Department of Medicine and Immunology at Vanderbilt University. He subsequently completed a Anatomic Pathology training in the USA at the Institute of Pathology at Case-Western Reserve University Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio and one year of fellowship in Surgical Pathology in the Department of Pathology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas.   

Together with the late Drs G.J. Batsakis and M.A. Luna, the concept of stochastic bi-cellular and segmental development of common types of salivary gland tumors was introduced to underlie classification of salivary gland malignancies. 

 He established and direct the Head and Neck tumor bank at M.D. Anderson and the salivary gland tumor tissue consortian funded by the NIDCR. 

 His group identified key neoplastic pathways underlying tumorigenesis and biology of adenoid cystic and salivary ductal carcinomas. 

 Dr El-Naggar has authored and co-authored an excess of 600 peer reviewed articles and numerous chapters, review and commentaries and is the recipient of Henry Rothschild research award at the Curie Institute in Paris, France, The Naval Research Unit-3 Letter of Merit, the Robert Alford Memorial Lectureship of the American Society of Head and Neck Surgery and member of the Gothenburg Royal Society of Science in Sweden