Department of Translational Molecular Pathogenesis, Center for RNA Interference and Non-coding RNAs, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston TX, USA;Prof. Dr.George A. Calin received both his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at Carol Davila University of Medicine in Bucharest, Romania. After working in cytogenetics as an undergraduate student with Dragos Stefanescu in Bucharest, Calin completed cancer genomics training in Massimo Negrini’s laboratory at the University of Ferrara, Italy, and in 2000, he became a postdoctoral fellow in Carlo Croce’s laboratory at Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In June 2007, Calin joined MD Anderson as an associate professor in the Experimental Therapeutics department and was promoted to Professor with tenure in 2013. He explores new RNA therapeutic options for cancer patients and studies the roles of microRNAs and other non-coding RNAs in cancer initiation and progression, as well as the mechanisms of cancer predisposition.