Dr. Lucy Gilbert: The Cancer-Curing Doctor

The Sydcast

Dr. Lucy Gilbert: The Cancer-Curing Doctor

Episode Summary:

Dr. Lucy Gilbert – an oncologist at McGill University – has developed a genetic AI-based test to detect early stage ovarian and endometrial cancers, the third highest cancer-killer of women. In this episode of The Sydcast, Dr. Gilbert shares her journey from Singapore to London to Montreal, one of six physician sisters, now closing in on a revolutionary advance in cancer treatment.

Sydney Finkelstein

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Lucy Gilbert

Dr. Lucy Gilbert is a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and the Department of Oncology at McGill University. She heads the tertiary/quaternary care Gynecologic Cancer Service of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) as well as its Women’s Health Research Unit which is active in multinational clinical trials investigating new precision therapies for gynecologic cancers thus providing practical and immediate benefits for women with gynecologic cancer. Her research focuses on novel therapeutic options for the treatment of ovarian and uterine cancers as well as technologies for their early detection. She has set up a network of satellite clinics as part of the DOvEE (Diagnosing Ovarian and Endometrial Cancers Early) project, which provides open access investigations for women with symptoms associated with gynecologic cancers. Dr. Gilbert and her team have recently developed a genomic uterine pap test to identify the somatic mutation. A sample is taken from the uterus and then uses machine learning to discriminate cancer from benign /normal samples. This test, which is currently being offered to women aged 45 – 70 years, has the potential to detect these cancers while they are confined to the gynecologic organs and still curable. The project received 6.4M GAPP funding to start the phase III clinical trial which started on May 10, 2021. In recognition of her outstanding leadership in cancer research, Dr. Gilbert was recently nominated as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women in Canada 2021.

Insights from this Episode

• The racism and sexism Lucy faced during her life professionally and personally
• Lucy’s thoughts on today’s generational anxiety
• How economically challenging was maintaining six daughters for his father
• Lucy’s experience moving to Montreal
• What does Lucy think about the placebo effect and how it affects cancer
• Lucy’s work and advances in cancer
• How problematic is ovarian cancer nowadays
• What is the BRCA test
• What advice would Lucy give to her younger self

Quotes from the Show:

• “[About her father] He considered us assets and he made us believe that the only limits were what we set for ourselves and if you wanted to be a provider for your family that’s what you did” - Lucy Gilbert [05:08]
• “Health and education, I believe it should not be left to market forces, it should be almost a fundamental right…you will not get a good society and ultimately and impact all of us if we do not invest in a reasonable amount of health for everyone regardless of their ability to pay and a reasonable amount on education” - Lucy Gilbert [13:56]
• “[About the placebo effect] I tell patients what we do with surgery and chemotherapy…is the tip of the iceberg” - Lucy Gilbert [28:40]
• “[About the test] It picks up somatic mutations inside, tells them about prevalent cancers but we also do a saliva test simultaneously which picks up the BRCA genes talk about the genetic susceptibility to these cancers” - Lucy Gilbert [44:17]

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Sydney Finkelstein

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Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

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Lucy Gilbert

LinkedIn: Lucy Gilbert

Website: Dr. Lucy Gilbert

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This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.