Patrick Bednarski studied biochemistry at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo before moving to Seattle in 1981 to work on his dissertation under the supervision of Sidney D. Nelson in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy at the University of Washington. The topic of his dissertation was the development of novel suicide inhibitors of the estrogen-producing enzyme aromatase. Aromatase inhibitors are potentially useful in the therapy of breast cancer. Following the completion of his PhD in 1986 he accepted an Alexander-von-Humboldt-Fellowship to work as a postdoc in the laboratories of Helmut Schönenberger in the Institute of Pharmacy at the University of Regensburg. In 1989 he began work towards his Habilitation in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Regensburg, which he completed in 1997. The theme of the Habilitation project was the development of new antitumor-active platinum complexes. The emphasis of that work as well as present research is to gain a better understanding of the activation mechanisms and biotransformations of antitumor Pt(II)- and Pt(IV)-diamine complexes. He has been a member of the faculty of the Institute of Pharmacy at the University of Greifswald since 1998.