This is one in a series of profiles —“Catching Up With”—on doctors and other health-care figures formerly in the spotlight. We see what they’re doing now and how their lives have changed.

From his discovery of human prolactin to his many leadership roles with organizations such as the Medical Research Council, the Cancer Institute and Genome Canada, Dr. Friesen has no regrets about his ‘great journey’

It was the late 1960s when Dr. Henry Friesen and a team at McGill University discovered the human form of prolactin, a hormone associated with lactation that at high levels can cause infertility.

Until this breakthrough, researchers debated whether humans had prolactin at all. Thanks to Dr. Friesen, not only was the debate put to rest, but a blood test to identify prolactin was developed, and countless women suffering with infertility were successfully treated.

This momentous discovery is just the first in a long list of accomplishments for Dr. Friesen, whose career has spanned more than four decades in the Canadian medical landscape.

For those unaware of his research beginnings, Dr. Friesen’s name may still ring bells. From 1991 to 2000, Dr. Friesen headed the Medical Research Council(MRC), and is credited with transforming the “quiet government agency” into the Canadian Institutes of Health Research(CIHR), which in 2005/06 provided more than $800 million in funding to Canadian researchers.

When Dr. Friesen was asked to take over as president, he had just finished serving as the head of the National Cancer Institute of Canada(NCIC)—a role he says served as a kind of apprenticeship.

“That experience was actually very helpful because it gave me a good understanding of the complexity of leadership in a major research funding agency,” he says.

Late into Dr. Friesen’s presidency at the NCIC, the agency had undergone a strategic planning process.

“I saw first-hand the advantage and the power of the consultative process in shaping a far-flung national agency’s direction,” he says.

As one of his first acts as president, Dr. Friesen put the agency through a similar planning process as the one he’d witnessed at the NCIC.

“This process of opening up the windows on the MRC proved enormously useful,” he says. “It created quite a splash.”

The three main points of the MRC’s strategic planning process were that the MRC should continue to focus on excellence, its council should embrace the full spectrum of health research and not just biomedical research, and to accomplish this, the MRC would have to develop partnerships. Though under his leadership this plan helped shape the present-day CIHR, Dr. Friesen stepped down from his role as president once the organization was set up.

“I had been there almost 10 years, and it was an enormously demanding activity, particularly at the tail end,” Dr. Friesen says. “Once CIHR was in place, it would take someone five, 10 years to really build the new enterprise and it would be better if somebody new began that task, because I was sure at my age it was inappropriate to be around for five or 10 more years.”

At this point in his career, with several notable accomplishments already under his belt, Dr. Friesen could have easily strolled off into retirement. Instead, he took the leadership skills and knowledge he’d acquired at the NCIC and CIHR and has used them to advise and shape other Canadian health organizations.

In 2000, Dr. Friesen was invited to act as the founding chair of a newly developed agency that had initially been proposed to the MRC: Genome Canada.

Dr. Friesen chaired Genome Canada’s council from 2000 to 2005. “That was really an extraordinarily productive period for Canada,” Dr. Friesen says.

Under president and CEO Dr. Martin Godbout(PhD), Genome Canada received more than $600 million over that five-year period, which was further leveraged into an additional $500 million to $600 million, Dr. Friesen says.

“So we, in the space of five years, had $1 billion of genomics science research carried out in Canada, and moved from the position where we were really a bit player in some areas to being in selected areas absolutely the world leaders.”

After his five years at Genome Canada, Dr. Friesen decided to “really retire,” which has meant taking on such roles as the chair of the St. Boniface Hospital Research Centre Enterprise Committee in Winnipeg, and taking part in external reviews for RIKEN, a Japanese government-supported research organization.

Last year, Dr. Friesen was also asked to chair the board of trustees for the Gairdner Foundation.

“It’s an important Canadian institution . . . it mirrors to Canadians what is really the highest pinnacle of excellence,” he says, though he adds that there are too few credible Canadian nominees and that many Canadian researchers do not undertake their research at home.

Though he has had differing roles over his career—from researcher and leader to providing advice and guidance—Dr. Friesen says he has enjoyed all of the various hats he’s worn. “I feel very blessed at having gained great satisfaction at different stages of each of the roles.”

“I’ve never looked back and said, I wish I’d done more of this.”

Dr. Friesen said each role has in its way been an act of fate, and that he’s benefited over the years from the support of his family, friends and colleagues.

“It’s been a great journey.”