Medical researcher.
Born at Morden on 31 July 1934, son of Frank and Agnes Friesen, he attended the Mennonite Brethren Collegiate then studied Medicine at the University of Manitoba, receiving BSc and MD degrees (1958). He trained as an endocrinologist at the New England Center Hospital at Boston, Massachusetts.
He returned to Canada in 1965 to serve for eight years as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at McGill University. He came back to Winnipeg in 1973 as Professor and Head of the Department of Physiology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba. There, he continued his research started at McGill on treatments for female infertility and hormonal deficiencies in children. In 1991, he moved to Ottawa, Ontario to become President of the Medical Research Council of Canada. Over the next nine years, he transformed it into the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Subsequently, he was the funding Chair of Genome Canada and President of the National Cancer Institutes of Canada.
In recognition of his service, he was inducted as an Officer into the Order of Canada (1987) and was later raised to a Companion (2003). He received a University of Manitoba Distinguished Alumni Award (1995), was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame (2001), and received a Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal (2002) and Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012).
In 1967, he married nurse Joyce MacKinnon at Montreal, Quebec and they subsequently had a daughter and a son.
He died at the St. Boniface Hospital on 30 April 2025.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 3 May 2025.
Obituary, Friends Funeral Service.
“Rady Faculty mourns passing of pioneering research endocrinologist,” UM News, 2 May 2025.
We thank Rick Mutton for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 5 August 2025
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