Professor
McGill University, Canada
Janusz Rak, MD, PhD obtained his medical degree in 1981, followed by doctorate at the Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Wroclaw, Poland (1986). He subsequently trained as a Fullbright Fellow at the Michigan Cancer Foundation (1990) in Detroit, MI, and continued his postdoctoral career at the Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto, ON, followed by faculty appointments at McMaster and McGill Universities in Canada. He is currently a Professor of Pediatrics, Experimental Medicine, Human Genetics and Biochemistry and Jack Cole Chair in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at McGill University in Montreal, QC, Canada. His laboratory investigates how oncogenic events deregulate tumour microenvironment, orchestrate intercellular communications and trigger vascular alterations and systemic vascular paraneoplastic syndromes in high grade brain tumours. The focal point of these studies are processes mediated by the exchange of extracellular vesicles carrying oncogenic cargo (oncosomes) including their biological contributions to progression, vascular pathologies (angiogenesis, thrombosis) and therapeutic responses in cancer across the age spectrum. He directs the CFI funded program – Centre for Applied Nanomedicine (CAN) at RIMUHC and the NET program sponsored by Fondation Charles Bruneau to investigate EV-based biomarkers in pediatric cancer, as well as projects supported by Canadian Institutes of Health Research and other sources.
