On Nov. 4, 2020, McGill University Professor William Foulkes awarded 2020 Wilder-Penfield Prize for research in the genetics of breast and ovarian cancer, helped in part by Quebec’s ‘founder effect’. Dr. Foulkes won the Wilder-Penfield prize for biomedicine, in part due to his extensive research not only into the genetic roots of breast and ovarian cancer, but also for his work on rare forms of cancer.

During his career, Dr. Foulkes identified the specific genetic mechanisms involved in several inherited cancers. According to the Canadian Cancer Society, inherited cancers account for 5 to 10% of all cancers. Women who inherit the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, for example, are up to 10 times more likely to develop breast cancer than the average woman. Identifying these and other genes has opened new avenues to interventions that have saved lives across Canada.