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Princess Margaret Cancer Centre

dr. tak mak goes

to the vatican

Dr. Tak Mak was there. So was U.S. Vice-

President Joe Biden and former CBS News

Anchor Katie Couric. As was Sean Parker, the

Co-Founder of Napster and the former President

of Facebook.

This eclectic mix of people was at the Vatican

this past April to take part in an international

conference on regenerative medicine.

For Dr. Mak, the invite came from Dr.

Ronald DePinho, the President of MD Anderson

Cancer Center in Texas, who was

“putting

together a small group of people to discuss

immunotherapy at the Vatican.”

That’s how Dr. Mak ended up on the same

stage as Couric, who moderated a panel

discussion involving him and three other

cancer immunotherapy experts.

While Dr. Mak was initially surprised

by the invitation, he wasn’t surprised that

immunotherapy was something of interest

to the Vatican and such a wide range

of individuals.

“Immunotherapy could become

a pillar in cancer therapy,”

Dr. Mak

says, underscoring its growing

importance in the field of

cancer treatment.

DR. Tak Mak,

SENIOR SCIENTIST

Dr. Tak Mak is one of The Princess

Margaret’s most renowned scientists and one of

the most cited medical researchers in the world.

Dr. Mak joined the Ontario Cancer

Institute, now part of Princess Margaret Cancer

Centre, as a post-doctoral fellow in the ‘70s. He

was mentored by Dr. James Till and Dr. Ernest

McCulloch – the celebrated Canadian scientists

who proved the existence of stem cells.

Dr. Mak’s cloning of the T-cell receptor

more than three decades ago helped advance

the field of immunology and had major

implications for the still-emerging world of

immunotherapy.

Today, Dr. Mak serves as the

Director of

The Campbell Family Institute for Breast

Cancer Research at The Princess Margaret

.

Some of his recent work has involved unique

research on a so-called sharpshooter drug that

slows down the growth of a number of

types of cancer.

Immunotherapy Pioneer

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