Dr. Anthony Mak – 2018 Winner David Cornfield Melanoma Fund Award
The David Cornfield Melanoma Fund is proud to celebrate Anthony Mak, MD, PhD, as the recipient of the 2018 David Cornfield Melanoma Fund Award.
AN OUTSTANDING PLATFORM FOR MELANOMA PREVENTION
In 2015, after having a suspicious mole checked, my grandmother received her first melanoma diagnosis. She underwent surgery to remove all cancerous tissue and was considered cancer free; however, 2 years later, while visiting the emergency room for severe back pain, the doctors discovered she had numerous nodules on both lungs.
Dear 16 Year Old Me saved my life
When “Dear 16 year old me” started making the rounds, it was two days before I would receive the results for an abnormal mole I had removed on my side.
Melanoma Awareness Month 2017
This year’s Melanoma Awareness Month was a great one for DCMF. Our awareness, prevention and research efforts were in full swing. Our 2017 Sun Smart Kids Program starting rolling out across Ontario, our melanoma awareness videos Dear 16 Year Old Me and #newfamilyrule continued to empower people to protect and check their skin, and the DCMF Award at the University of Toronto began to take shape.
We Love Our Volunteers
Every organization, especially a small grassroots charity like ours, knows it would be impossible to function without volunteers. In fact, the David Cornfield Melanoma Fund (the “DCMF”) started because a group of dedicated volunteers got together to ensure that David’s wish to take steps to ensure that no other family had to lose a loved one from melanoma was attained.
The story behind Dear 16 Year Old Me
David and Sari Cornfield were two of our closest friends. Mark and I met David at Deloitte where we worked. David was the one who, much to his amusement and delight, first discovered our blooming interoffice romance a few years before.
Awareness is beautiful
My journey begins the week of my 26th birthday. Birthdays are such a happy, memorable time, aren’t they? At least that had always been true for myself, and this was one I would truly remember for the rest of my life.
Spotlight on melanoma
January 2nd 2015 was the day that changed my life. It was the day my dermatologist called to tell me the mole he biopsied from my face tested positive for melanoma. As a guy who grew up in South Florida, I certainly knew of melanoma; but I had no idea what it really was. I just thought it was “skin cancer.” I didn’t know it could penetrate your lymph nodes, spread throughout your body and potentially kill you.
Is tanning the new tobacco?
2015 started off with an amazing public health feat: Australia banned indoor tanning nation-wide. This made Australia the second country (after Brazil) to make indoor tanning illegal. Both countries should be applauded for taking this bold and impressive measure to protect their citizens from melanoma.
Sun Safety from the bottom of the world
For the past two years, I’ve been leading a research team in Antarctica as part of the United States Antarctic Program to understand the vulnerability of Antarctic fishes to future climate change. I’m specifically interested in understanding how ocean warming and ocean acidification (the absorption of CO2 by the ocean causes it to acidify) impacts the development and performance of young fishes.