Julia Polak

Professor Dame Julia M. Polak, FMedSci, DBE (b. 1939, Argentina) and was educated at the University of Buenos Aires, before moving to London. She is married to Professor Daniel Catovsky, and has three children.

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Prof. Polak is 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 is currently head of the Centre for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at Imperial College London, a centre for medical research she set up with Professor Larry Hench, also from Imperial College, to develop cells and tissues for transplantation into humans.

She is now 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 has also been recognized as one of the most highly cited and influential researchers in her field.

Her work has been recognized by the Society for Endocrinology, the International Academy of Pathology and the Association of Clinical Pathologists.

Prof. Polak has received funding through the Texas/United Kingdom Collaborative Research Initiative in Biosciences.

She was named in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2003 and was created DBE for her services to medicine.