Martin Gleave

Dr. Martin Gleave is a distinguished professor and chairman of the Department of Urologic Sciences at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and a British Columbia Leadership Chair. He is co-founder of the Vancouver Prostate Centre, where he served as director from 2006 to 2024. He is a surgeon-scientist whose research characterizes molecular mechanisms mediating treatment resistance in cancer, and designing co-targeting strategies to improve cancer control. He patented several anti-cancer drugs and founded OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals to develop OGX-011 and OGX-427, inhibitors of cytoprotective chaperones clusterin and Hsp27 which progressed to Phase III and Phase II trials world-wide. OncoGenex was awarded Canadian Biotech Company of the Year in 2010. Dr. Gleave also recently co-founded Sitka and Sustained Therapeutics.

In 2017, Dr. Gleave was appointed to the Order of Canada for his leadership role in developing new treatments for prostate cancer and for his research on mechanisms mediating treatment resistance in cancer. In 2020, he was inducted as a fellow in the National Academy of Inventors. Dr. Gleave is the recipient of numerous awards, including: the 2018 Dr. Chew Wei Memorial Prize in Cancer Research, the Huggins Medal from the Society of Urologic Oncology in 2018, the Richard Williams Award from the American Urological Association in 2017, the Barringer Medal from the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons, the Eugene Fuller Award from the American Urological Association in 2013, the Aubrey Tingle Prize from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, and the National Cancer Institute of Canada William Rawls Award for contributions to cancer control. He was appointed a Distinguished University Scholar at UBC in 2003 and awarded a B.C. Leadership Chair in 2005, the BC Biotech Award for Innovation and Achievement in 2006, and the BC Innovation Council Frontiers in Research Award in 2007.