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Dame Julia Margaret Polak, DBE, FMedSci (26 June 1939 – 11 August 2014) was an Argentine-born Polish pathologist who lived in England. She was head of the Centre for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at Imperial College London, a centre for medical research she set up with Larry Hench, also from Imperial College, to develop cells and tissues for transplantation into humans.
Biography
Julia Polak was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, daughter of Carlos Polak, a judge, and writer Rebeca Mactas Alpersohn. Her family was Jewish, and had fled persecution in Eastern Europe. She was educated at the University of Buenos Aires, before moving to London. She was married to a fellow student, Daniel Catovsky, and had three children. Her grand-niece is American model and actress Camila Morrone.
Polak was one of the longest surviving recipients of a heart and lung transplant in the United Kingdom. It was her transplant in 1995 which caused her to change her career direction from pathology towards the newly developing field of tissue engineering.
She was editor of the journal, Tissue Engineering, as well as a member of the MRC/UK Stem Cell Bank Clinical and User Liaison Committee and an advisor to the Science and Parliament Committees. She was recognized as one of the most highly cited and influential researchers in her field.
Her work was recognized by the Society for Endocrinology, the International Academy of Pathology and the Association of Clinical Pathologists. She received funding through the Texas/United Kingdom Collaborative Research Initiative in Biosciences.
Polak died on 11 August 2014, aged 75, from undisclosed causes.
Awards and honours
In the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her services to medicine. In 2004, she received the Ellison-Cliffe Medal from the Royal Society of Medicine.
References
- ^ "Professor Dame Julia Polak - obituary". The Telegraph. 8 September 2014. Retrieved 8 September 2014.
- Laurance, Jeremy (11 October 2014). "Julia Margaret Polak". The Lancet. 384 (9951): 1342. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61809-2. PMID 25317447. S2CID 33092517.
- "Obituary: Professor Dame Julia Polak, histochemist". 19 September 2014.
- "Julia Margaret (Dame) Polak". Munks Roll. Royal College of Physicians of London. Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- "Clinical Medicine category list". ISIHighlyCited.com. Retrieved 18 May 2012.
External links
- Interview with Julia Polak
- Creating a Company Based on University Research: A Case Study by Julia Polak Archived 20 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- 1939 births
- 2014 deaths
- 20th-century British biologists
- 20th-century British medical doctors
- 20th-century British women scientists
- 21st-century British biologists
- 21st-century British medical doctors
- 21st-century British women scientists
- Academics of Imperial College London
- Argentine Jews
- Argentine pathologists
- Argentine women physicians
- British Jews
- British pathologists
- British women biologists
- Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire
- Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom)
- Lung transplant recipients
- Physicians from Buenos Aires
- University of Buenos Aires alumni
- 20th-century Argentine physicians
- 21st-century Argentine physicians
- 20th-century Argentine women physicians
- 21st-century Argentine women physicians
- Heart transplant recipients