March 2023 - Professor François Guilhot, an Emeritus Professor of Hematology and the past Director of the Clinical Investigation Center, 1402 INSERM in Poitiers, France, will receive the 2023 iCMLf Goldman Prize. Professor Guilhot receives the award in recognition of his pioneering achievements in important clinical trials in CML and his longstanding leadership in the management of CML. The annual Goldman Prize, awarded in honour of Professor John Goldman, acknowledges outstanding lifetime contributions to the management of patients with CML.

"Many great scientists have already received the John Goldman Prize. And I am very honoured to have been selected this year;this award recognizes 35 years of research and care for CML patients.” (Professor François Guilhot)

Professor Guilhot’s work as a leading clinical investigator in CML over the past decades has made significant contributions to advancing treatment for patients with CML. His first major clinical trial for the French Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Study Group demonstrated the superiority of interferon combined with cytarabine versus interferon alone in CML and also showed that a complete cytogenetic response was associated with prolonged survival (N Engl J Med 1997; 337:223-229). Later, this combination was used as a comparator for imatinib trials, which later led to the approval of imatinib for first-line use in CML.

The crucial long-term French SPIRIT trial that he led by Professor Guilhot started recruiting patients at a time at when 2^nd generation TKI’s were investigated within Phase I or II trials. The aim was to improve the survival for patients with CML and to determine the optimal non-transplant therapy for CML by combining imatinib with other drugs or dose escalation. The SPIRIT trial was also instrumental in showing survival over a long period of time - more than 15 years. (Leukemia. 2021;35(8):2332-2345).

He was also involved in many of the other major International clinical studies for CML including most recently some of the ground-breaking discontinuation trials such as STIM, EURO-SKI or the STOP 2G TKI study. Dr Guilhot co-authored important treatment recommendations such as the European LeukemiaNET recommendations and has been involved into the development of predictive CML scores such as the EUTOS score - all of which contributed significantly to effective clinical decision-making in CML.

François Guilhot has published over 600 peer-reviewed papers over his career.

He studied medicine at the University of Paris, obtaining a Master of Human Biology in Hematology, a medical doctorate and later became a Professor of Clinical Hematology. He was granted the first Award of the French Society of Hematology for Clinical Research in 1999, founded the Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) French Group, and is the President of the haematological section of the National Council of French Physicians. Since 2016 he is a member of the Scientific Board of the Foundation Bergonie Cancer Research Centre in Bordeaux and since 2017 a member of the Academy of Medicine.

Learn more about Professor Guilhot’s clinical research work here