Congratulations to the 2025 Canada Gairdner Award Laureates!

The 2025 Canada Gairdner Awards Gala was held on October 23rd at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), filled with an incredible atmosphere of excitement and celebration. It was a memorable evening as we honored our eight 2025 Canada Gairdner Award laureates, recognizing their outstanding contributions to improving human health around the world. More than 400 were in attendance including dignitaries from Canada, France, Brazil, government representatives, members of the scientific and academic communities, and students invited by Visions of Science and Canadian Association for Girls in Science (CAGIS).

Scroll down to watch all 2025  Gairdner Award Laureate acceptance speeches!

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2025 Canada Gairdner International Awards

Awarded “For pioneering research into the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the genetic disease cystic fibrosis, leading to the development of transformative drug therapies based on these mechanisms, thereby improving and saving countless lives."

Michael Welsh, MD

Roy J. Carver Professor of Internal Medicine and Molecular Physiology and Biophysics; Director, Pappajohn Biomedical Institute; Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa

Paul Negulescu, PhD

Senior Vice President, Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Awarded "For pioneering work on the Notch signalling pathway, which has significantly contributed to our understanding of how cells communicate with each other during development, how these signals regulate cell fate determination and how disruption can lead to developmental defects and cancer."

Spyros Artavanis-Tsakonas, PhD

Professor Emeritus, Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School; Professor Emeritus, Collège de France

Iva Greenwald, PhD

Da Costa Professor of Biology, Dept of Biological Sciences, Columbia University; Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University's Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

Gary Struhl, PhD

Herbert and Florence Irving Professor at the Zuckerman Institute; Professor of Genetics and Development, Columbia University's Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

2025 John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award

Awarded “For the invention of a ready-to-use therapeutic food, which has revolutionized management of severe acute malnutrition in children, allowing treatment to shift from inpatient care to community-based management and saving countless lives."

André Briend, MD, PhD

Former Senior Scientist, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement; Adjunct Professor, Tampere Center for Child, Adolescent and Maternal Health Research, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland; Affiliated Professor, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Demark

2025 Peter Gilgan Canada Gairdner Momentum Award

Awarded “For the ground-breaking discovery of the role of transposable elements in regulating anti-tumour immunity through viral mimicry, which holds transformative potential for cancer therapy, and for pioneering the development of a novel blood-based test for early cancer detection, classification, and therapy monitoring."

Daniel De Carvalho, PhD

Senior Scientist, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network; Professor, Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto; Allan Slaight Scientist and Senior Scientist, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre

Awarded “For international leadership in digital therapeutics and training initiatives focused on childhood illness-related pain assessment and self-management for conditions such as juvenile idiopathic arthritis, sickle cell disease, chronic pain and cancer."

Jennifer Stinson, RN-EC, Ph.D, CPNP, FAAN, CAHS Fellow

 

Senior Scientist, SickKids Research Institute; Nurse Practitioner, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids); Co-Director, SickKids Centre for Pain Management, Research and Education; Professor, Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto