Paul Peter Tak

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Tak_photo

Professor Paul-Peter Tak is Director of the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at the Academic Medical Center (AMC)/University of Amsterdam in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Following his undergraduate medical studies, he received his medical degree at the Free University (VU) Amsterdam, graduating cum laude. He was trained as an internist, immunologist and rheumatologist at Leiden University Medical Centre, where he also received his PhD degree. He has worked as a visiting scientist at UCSD (La Jolla, CA) for 2 years and was affiliated with this university as Clinical Associate Professor for a further 5 years. From 2004 to 2008 he also served as Medical Director of the Dubai Bone and Joint Centre (Dubai, UAE). He founded in 2005 Arthrogen B.V., a company developing gene therapy, and has served as Chief Scientific Officer since then.

Professor Tak took up his current post as Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology at AMC in Amsterdam in 1999. In 2003 he was appointed as Program Director for the Fellowship in Rheumatology at AMC.

The recipient of numerous grants and honours, including a variety of fellowships and visiting professorships, Professor Tak has been principal investigator for more than 30 clinical trials. His major research interests include signal transduction pathways, the pathogenesis of synovial inflammation in rheumatoid and psoriatic arthritis and the development and evaluation of immunotherapies and gene therapy for these conditions.

Professor Tak is a member of the EULAR (European League against Rheumatism) Scientific Committee and Executive Committee, Chairman of EULAR’s Standing Committee on Investigative Rheumatology, Chairman of the Grant Advisory Council for EULAR’s Orphan Disease Programme (ODP) on systemic sclerosis, and member of the Annual Meeting Planning Committee of the ACR (American College of Rheumatology). He has been co-editor of Arthritis & Rheumatism and is in considerable demand as an editorial advisor of all major rheumatology journals. His bibliography includes a list of more than 300 peer-reviewed clinical and basic research papers, as well as books on various aspects of immunology and rheumatology.