charles brenton huggins (september 22, 1901 – january 12, 1997) was a canadian-american physician, physiologist and cancer researcher at the university of chicago specializing in prostate cancer. he was awarded the 1966 nobel prize for physiology or medicine for discovering in 1941 that hormones could be used to control the spread of some cancers. this was the first discovery that showed that cancer could be controlled by chemicals.