Vincent Giguère Awarded the 2025 Robert L. Noble Prize by the Canadian Cancer Society

The Rosalind & Morris Goodman Cancer Institute (GCI) is pleased to congratulate Prof. Vincent Giguere, of the GCI and McGill’s Department of Biochemistry, who was awarded the 2025 Robert L. Noble Prize by the Canadian Cancer Society.

Prof. Giguère’s outstanding research career is highlighted by the discovery of some of the first nuclear receptors, a family of proteins with many roles in human biology and disease that are the targets of ~14% of all FDA-approved drugs. His discovery of a nuclear receptor for retinoic acid, the active form of vitamin A, made him one of the pioneers of the field of molecular endocrinology and enabled subsequent studies that led to a cure for promyelocytic leukemia (PML), once a highly lethal disease. Prof. Giguère also discovered the estrogen-related receptors (ERRs), master regulators of cellular metabolism, demonstrating the unanticipated existence of “orphan” nuclear receptors lacking known hormone ligands. His work elucidated the molecular basis of ERR function in cancer, metabolic disorders, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and many other diseases. By identifying the first synthetic ERR ligands, he was one of the forerunners in the establishment of the concept of “reverse endocrinology”, an approach that aims to treat disease by targeting orphan nuclear receptors.

A cornerstone of the Canadian cancer research community for nearly 40 years, Prof. Giguère served as the Director of the Molecular Oncology Group of the McGill University Health Centre, which became part of the Goodman Cancer Research Centre (now the GCI) in 2008. He also led a major national research program focused on cancer metabolism, funded by the Terry Fox Research Institute, from 2015-2019.

Congratulations on this prestigious and well-deserved prize, Prof. Giguère! The entire GCI community is extremely proud of your achievements.