Tak Wah Mak
Tak Wah Mak ( born October 4, 1946 in Canton, China) is a Chinese- Canadian immune biologist and cancer researcher and professor at the University of Toronto.
Life
Tak Wah Mak grew up in Hong Kong. In 1967 he graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin a bachelor's degree in biochemistry in 1969 and a master's degree in biophysics, a minor in chemistry. In 1972 he graduated from the University of Alberta in Alberta with a thesis on the biophysical and biochemical properties of three variants of Mengo encephalomyelitis virus a Ph.D. in biochemistry. A short time later Mak took Canadian citizenship. As a postdoctoral fellow, he worked at the Ontario Cancer Institute, Princess Margaret Hospital which is part of Toronto and the University of Toronto.
In the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto Mak received a first chair (1974 Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, 1979 ) and in 1984 a full professorship. Mak in 1993 was founding director of the Amgen Institute, a research institute of the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto and the University of Toronto, before he took over the Institute for Breast Cancer Research, the same two institutions in 2004.
In 1980, Mak visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, and from 2004 to 2007 at the University of Hong Kong.
Work
Mak is one of the discoverers of the human T- cell receptor, which he could clone 1984. MAK were able to show how various types of T- cells produced. Mak could also demonstrate that a single gene of the Friend leukemia virus can cause an acute myeloid leukemia. Recent work Maks deal with key genes that regulate the immune system and suppress tumors.
Tak Wah Mak is the most cited scientific author of Canada.