From 1974 until 1999, he was a visiting professor at Yale University, meanwhile standing as the Vice-Rector of the Medical Academy in Kraków (1978–1981) and a member of the Presidium of the International Union of Immunological Societies (1983–1986).

The father, as his son recalled, was a tough, demanding and strict man, fluent in French and German language.

[1] His grandparents were Franciszek Ptak (1859–1936), an innkeeper, peasant movement activist and a member of the Diet of Galicia and Lodomeria,[2] and Józef Krawczyk (1865–1942), a foreman in the cigarette factory “Cygar fabryka” at Dolnych Młynów Street in Kraków.

Włodzimierz had a younger sister, Wanda Ptak-Kollat (1930–1984), a master engineer in roads and bridges and a graduate of Kraków Polytechnic.

He died of a heart attack just after the war, before my high school graduation.”[2] In his youth, Włodzimierz Ptak learned to play the violin.

At the time, he attended the trade school at Brzozowa Street in Kraków, also taking secret Latin lessons from professor Pardiak.

As a boy, Włodzimierz kept himself a large collection of protozoa at home, and next to it a dog, a cat, a canary, a fish and a white mouse.

Together with a friend of his, using glasses purchased at a local optical store, they constructed a simple telescope to observe the night sky.

[1] From 1943, Ptak worked physically at the construction of the road from Dębniki to Prokocim, and later as a hand of a car mechanic in a workshop at Grzegórzecka Street in Kraków.

The Studies on Social Doctrines of Christianity by Yves Guyot contributed to the fact that I am irreligious.”[1] Ptak attended the Jan III Sobieski High School in Kraków, but due to a conflict with a mathematics teacher in the final year, he moved to the Henryk Sienkiewicz High School.

[3] During the studies, to support himself financially, he founded a music group with colleagues from different universities, and earned money by playing at seasonal parties and weddings.

[a] Soon after, he was transferred to the Służba Polsce (Service to Poland; SP), a state paramilitary organization for young people.

Then he was accepted by Ludwik Hirszfeld as a volunteer at the Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy of the Polish Academy of Sciences, but he remained there only for a few weeks.

In 1955, during a two-month sick leave, he worked at the Department of Microbiology at the Medical Academy in Kraków, where he conducted research together with Jan Bóbr.

[2] In 1967, Ptak left for a ten-month British Council scholarship to the National Institute for Medical Research in London.

Ptak believed that his frequent visits to the United States from a country of the Soviet Bloc, which Polish People's Republic then was, were enabled by the-then Rector of the Medical Academy in Kraków, Tadeusz Popiela: “It was not because the regime loved us that we left the country whenever we wanted.

He published more than two hundred original research papers in international peer reviewed journals,[6] and was one of the most frequently cited Polish scientists in the field of biomedicine after 1965.