PULMONARY VASCULAR RESEARCH INSTITUTEJulia Polak, founder and head of the Centre for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at Imperial College London, died last month (August 11). She was 75 years old.
Polak was born in Argentina and studied medicine at the University of Buenos Aires, specializing in pathology. In 1968, she moved to the U.K. for graduate studies at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith Hospital, now part of Imperial College in London. She stayed on as the head of the histochemistry department, and became a professor of endocrine pathology at the medical school. While studying the reasons for transplant rejection in organ recipients with surgeon Magdi Yacoub, Polak fell seriously ill and was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension. By age 56, her condition was severe enough to require a heart and lung transplant. Her collaborator, Yacoub, performed the procedure.
Returning to research and teaching a year later, Polak examined her own diseased lungs during a ...
