Charles Brenton Huggins

His son Dr. Charles Edward Huggins was a physician and cryobiologist who helped in developing a procedure of freezing and reusing donated red blood cells in such a way that it can be stored for almost an indefinite period. Charles succumbed to pancreatic cancer at the age of 60 in 1989.

On January 12, 1997, Huggins died at his Chicago home at the age of 95 after several years of ill-health. He is survived by his daughter Emily Wellman Huggins Fine.

He was born on September 22, 1901, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada to Charles Edward Huggins and Bessie Maria Spencer as their elder son. His father was a pharmacist.

He studied in public schools in Halifax. In 1920 he completed his graduation by obtaining a BA degree from the ‘Acadia University’ located in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

He then got enrolled at the ‘Harvard University’ in Boston, Massachusetts to study medicine and earned his MD in 1924.

From 1924 to 1926 he did his internship at the ‘University of Michigan and thereafter he was inducted as an instructor in Surgery at the Medical School of the University in 1926, a post he served for a year.

He remained a member of the Faculty of the ‘University of Chicago’ from 1927, serving first as an instructor in Surgery from 1927 to 1929. After initiating his career as a surgeon, he made significant discoveries in urology, a subject that he specialized in while at the university.

Thereafter he joined as an ‘Assistant Professor at the ‘University of Chicago’ and held the position till 1933 following which he served as Associate Professor of the university until 1936.

During the 1930s he began his research on cancer, an ailment which at that time was treated by conducting surgery and applying radiation and not by drugs.

In 1936 he became a Professor of Surgery at the ‘University of Chicago’ and served in the position until 1962 following which he served the university as ‘William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor’.

In 1966 he was awarded the ‘Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine’ for his contributions in the field of cancer research.