Dr. Tak Mak Director The Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research

Dr. Tak W. Mak is the Director of the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research at the Princess Margaret Hospital and a University Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics and Department of Immunology, University of Toronto.

He was trained at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, the University of Alberta and the Ontario Cancer Institute.  His research interests centre on immune recognition and regulation as well as cell survival and cell death in normal and malignant cells.  He is best known as the leading scientist of the group that first cloned the genes of the human T cell antigen receptor.

His more recent work includes the creation of a series of genetically altered mice that have proved critical to unraveling intracellular programs governing the development and function of the immune system, and the dissection of signal transduction cascades in various cell survival and apoptotic pathways.

Dr. Mak holds Honorary Doctoral Degrees from universities in North America and Europe, is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and has been elected a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), a Foreign Associate of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (UK). He  has also trained numerous researchers and scientists in both academia and industry in Canada as well as around the world. He was recently awarded the Order of Ontario.

He has won international recognition in the form of the Emil von Behring Prize, the King Faisal Prize for Medicine, the Gairdner Foundation International Award, the Sloan Prize of the General Motors Cancer Foundation, the Novartis Prize in Immunology and the Paul Ehrlich Prize and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize of Germany.