Henry G. Friesen, C.C., FRSC, FCAHS
Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Senior Fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Manitoba
(Winnipeg, MB)
Henry G. Friesen is an endocrinologist, a distinguished professor emeritus of the University of Manitoba and the discoverer of prolactin, a hormone which stimulates lactation in mammary glands. His work with prolactin helped to develop the drug bromocriptine, used for the treatment of infertility.
From 1991 until 1999 he was president of the Medical Research Council of Canada and was the driving force behind its transformation into the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Dr. Friesen has published over 400 papers in scientific journals and served as a mentor for more than eighty post-doctoral fellows and graduate students, many of whom today are in leadership positions around the world.
He has received many distinguished awards, including a Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1977 and 2001, the McLaughlin Medal of the Royal Society of Canada, the Koch Medal: the highest award of the Endocrine Society, the Order of Canada (promoted to Companion in 2001), eight honorary degrees, and was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2001.
He is also a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He is the founding chair of Genome Canada, a corporation created to spearhead the development of genomics research and its impact in Canada. He was also president of the National Cancer Institute of Canada.
(12/08)