Tak Mak

First Person | Tak Mak

Courtesy of Tak Mak

His name is on more than 435 journal articles, including the 1984 seminal paper¹ explaining how T-cell receptors recognize and combat invaders: At last count, it has been cited in 1,145 papers. Tak Mak, the 50-something-year-old immunologist from the Advanced Medical Discovery Institute, University of Toronto, has been lauded internationally for his work by numerous countries, including Saudi Arabia, England, Canada, and the United States. Born in China and raised in Hong Kong, Mak is considered the prince, if not the king, of knockouts. In a 1999 article in The Scientist, he noted that his lab had generated some 60 strains of transgenic mice, which it shares with colleagues. "You can't imagine my mouse bills," he says.

What is your motto?
"The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials"-- Chinese proverb

Of which papers are...