Image credit: Friends of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (FCIHR)
Dr. Henry Friesen is an internationally renowned Canadian endocrinologist, best known for the discovery of human prolactin. Prolactin is a hormone that stimulates the production of milk in female mammals. It also has reproductive functions in mammals and other vertebrates, such as fish and birds. Animal prolactin was discovered in the 1930s, but its human form was not uncovered until Dr. Friesen’s trailblazing research three decades later.
Dr. Friesen is among the more than 1,300 outstanding researchers whose careers have been launched with the support of the Banting Research Foundation (BRF). Since 1925, the BRF has invested in brilliant and promising young health and biomedical researchers. It is the mandate of the BRF to support and mentor these rising stars in research in the way that the BRF’s founder, the insulin-discoverer and Nobel laureate Sir Frederick Banting, had been early in his career.
Henry George Friesen was born on July 31, 1934, in Morden, Manitoba. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Manitoba (UManitoba) and remained there to receive his Doctorate of Medicine in 1958. Afterwards, he completed an internship and medical residency at the Winnipeg General Hospital, before training as an endocrinologist at the New England Center Hospital in Boston.
In 1965, Dr. Friesen was appointed to McGill University, as an Assistant Professor of Medicine, and to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. He stayed at McGill for the next 8 years, where he studied human growth hormone (HGH) in children. His research helped to develop a therapy based on HGH used now to treat thousands of children who have growth hormone-deficiency every year. In 1966, Dr. Friesen received a grant from the BRF which allowed him to deepen his research in HGH, resulting in the groundbreaking discovery of human prolactin.
In the early 20th century, it had been suggested that extracts from the anterior pituitary gland (a small structure, about the size of a pea, located in the base of the brain) could stimulate milk production. But the specific substance responsible for this stimulation remained unknown. In the early 1930s, Oscar Riddle, an American endocrinologist, developed a technique that enabled him to isolate substances present in pituitary extracts from animals. He found the milk stimulating substance and named it ‘prolactin’, deriving from the Latin root for ‘milk’.
Riddle’s technique remained the only way to isolate animal prolactin for several decades. At that time, most endocrinologists doubted human prolactin even existed. Every time scientists tried to isolate and purify human prolactin, they would only find HGH, which is structurally similar. Dr. Friesen used radioimmunoassay, a recently developed technique at the time, to differentiate these two compounds. This method uses radioactive elements to mark biological substances making them visible in human blood even in tiny amounts. In this way, he was able to find a compound similar, but not identical, to HGH. Using antibodies, molecules that bind specifically to other substances like a lock and key, he was able to successfully isolate and purify human prolactin for the first time in the late 1960s, publishing his discovery in 1970.
Dr. Friesen went on to show that an excess of prolactin circulating in the blood can cause infertility. His observation resulted in the development of a drug called bromocriptine to treat this cause of infertility. This drug is still used today as an effective treatment in thousands of women.
Dr. Friesen returned to the University of Manitoba in 1973. There, he became the Head of the Department of Physiology and a Professor of Medicine for two decades. In 1998, the University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science degree, and also recognized his achievements through the creation of the Henry G. Friesen Endowed Chair in Metabolic and Endocrine Diseases. Now he is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UManitoba.
Dr. Friesen has also demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities. His influence on academic medicine has gone far beyond his own field. From 1991 to 1999 he was President of the Medical Research Council of Canada and helped to transform it into the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), a major federal agency that funds health and biomedical research. His work at CIHR is credited with redefining medical research in Canada. He also served as the President of the National Cancer Institute of Canada and President of the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation. In 2000, he was appointed the Founding Chair of Genome Canada, the federal government’s lead corporation supporting genomics research, staying in that role for five years. In 2005, the Friends of CIHR established The Henry G. Friesen International Prize in Health Research in recognition of Dr. Friesen’s distinguished leadership, vision and innovative contributions to health research and health research policy.
Dr. Friesen was awarded many prizes during his career, including the Canada Gairdner International Award in 1977, the Order of Canada in 1987, the Gairdner Foundation Wightman Award in 2001, and the Order of Manitoba in 2004. He has also received Honorary Doctorates from the University of Western Ontario, University of British Columbia, McGill University and McMaster University.
Dr. Friesen received two more grants from the BRF, one in 1972 while still at McGill, and another in 1973, when he returned to the UManitoba. “I will always be grateful for the support for my research provided by the Banting Research Foundation at the early stage of my career,” he says.
— Written by Ana de Faria