Michael R. Hayden, CM OBC FRSC[1] [1] is a Killam Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia, the highest honour UBC can confer on any faculty member.

He is a senior scientist and former director of the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics (CMMT) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; a genetic research centre within UBC's Faculty of Medicine and affiliated with the BC Children's Hospital Research Institute and the BC Children's Hospital Foundation, which he founded.

Dr. Hayden was appointed as the President of Global R&D and Chief Scientific Officer at Teva Pharmaceutical Industries from 2012 to 2017.

[5] Hayden received the Canada Gairdner Foundation Wightman Award[6] in 2011, recognizing him as a physician-scientist who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in medicine and medical science.

His paternal grandfather, Max Raphael Hahn was an entrepreneur, art collector and chairman of the Jewish community in Göttingen, Germany.

His father, originally named Rudolf (Rudi) Hahn, fled to London in 1939, enlisted in the British army and fought during World War II, and eventually settled in South Africa in 1947.

He moved to Canada and joined the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1983 from the Children's Hospital in Boston, a teaching arm of Harvard Medical School.

[citation needed] Since 2010: In 2002, Hayden was part of the cast of the documentary Chasing the Cure which discussed treatments for widespread killer-heart disease, cancer, and bacterial poisoning and how research findings will change the face of medicine in the next 20 years.