Richard O. Hynes, PhD, FAACR, an emeritus Daniel K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Fellow of the AACR Academy, died January 6, 2026. He was 81 years old.
Hynes was acclaimed for his research into the molecular basis for cell adhesion and for recognizing that changes in cell adhesion can alter cell function and contribute to human diseases, including cancer.
Born in 1944 in Nairobi, Kenya, Hynes grew up in Liverpool and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biochemistry in 1966 and 1970, respectively, from the University of Cambridge. He received a doctorate in biology from MIT in 1971 and completed a fellowship at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London in 1974.
He joined the faculty of MIT in 1975 and became a full professor of biology in 1983 and head of the Biology Department in 1989. In 1991, he was appointed director of MIT’s Center for Cancer Research (now the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research), and served 10 years in that capacity. He was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator in 1988, a Ludwig professor in 1989, and an associate member of the Broad Institute in 2004.
Hynes became a member of AACR in 1994 and was elected to the AACR Academy with the class of 2014. He also served on the editorial board of Molecular Cancer Research.
Hynes was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1987, the Royal Society of London in 1989, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994, and the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) in 2016. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) in 1995 and the National Academy of Sciences in 1996.
He won the Canada Gairdner International Award in 1997 and the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 2022.
Hynes was awarded the E.B. Wilson Medal by the ASCB and the Robert J. and Claire Pasarow Foundation Medical Research Award, both in 2007, and the David Rall Medal from NAM in 2017, among other honors.
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I am saddened to hear this and my condolences to Richard's family. I did not know Richard well, but interacted with him during the inception of the NCI Tumor Microenvironment Network that was organized by Harold Moses. Richard was remarkably collegial, collaborative and innovative with a major push for the group to evaluate the contributed of extracellular matrix components in the context of tumor growth and progression. His kindness, intellect and collaborative spirit helped foster a very successful effort.