Cancer biologist Dr. Juliet Daniel on Trevor Noah, Hallmark movies and daily meditations

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October is a busy month for Juliet Daniel. The renowned cancer biologist and professor at McMaster University in Hamilton usually finds herself racing (virtually) between the lab, her office and church halls delivering talks about her research during breast cancer awareness month.

A breast cancer survivor herself, Daniel is passionate about drawing attention to cancer risk in young Black women, a group disproportionately affected by triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive breast cancer subtype that her lab is working to combat. In patients of Caribbean and African ancestry, a gene called Kaiso is associated with poor survival and may play a role in aggressive cancers – a fact Daniel knows well, considering she discovered the gene and named it after the Calypso music she grew up listening to in her native Barbados.

Daniel talked with The Globe and Mail about her advice to budding scientists, her reluctance to wear pink and how sappy Hallmark movies got her through the darkest days of the pandemic.

I’m fascinated by the morning routines of successful people. So tell me, what do you do when you first get up?

When I first wake up, I do some meditation. I read my Bible and some inspirational books that I have at my bedside. During the past 2½ years, I’ve done a virtual workout. So some days, if I’m rushing, it’s only a 10-minute virtual workout. Other days, it’s a 20-to-30 minute virtual workout. [Daniel’s favourite fitness YouTubers include Sydney Cummings Houdyshell, Brian Syuki and the instructors at growwithjo.]

You mentioned you have some inspirational books you like to look at in the morning. Any favourites?

One of the ones that I read every day is by the author Joel Osteen. It’s called I Declare: 31 Promises to Speak Over Your Life, and there’s one for each day of the month, which is why it’s 31. Each day there’s a different one and many of them resonate with me.

Speaking of books, what’s the last one you couldn’t put down?

Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.

What did you like about that book?

I loved the candidness. I related to some of his experiences in the book, but also I just loved how he overcame so much, how he and his mom overcame so much, and how he used his wit. He had so many gifts that he himself didn’t recognize as gifts, because society didn’t necessarily value him as an individual.

Have you gone back to vacationing at all? If so, what was your best trip of the past five years?

South Africa is always a favourite. It was my second time when I went in 2019, just before the pandemic. I’m from Barbados, so I go back there quite often. The highlight this summer was going to Denman Island off the east coast of Vancouver Island to have a minireunion with friends from my graduate-school days, and to celebrate the birthday of one of my friends who turned 50. She and her husband circumnavigated Vancouver Island in 51 days and we all planned our trips to be on Denman Island when they got there. We had the most amazing six days together.

You mentor a lot of young scientists. What advice do you give them for building a life they love?

I tell them, first of all, follow that old saying: ‘To thine own self be true.’ You have to know who you are. I totally understand the parental pressure to pursue certain careers. Most of my family wanted me to be a doctor because no one in my family had gone to university before. But I wasn’t that keen on being a [medical] doctor per se, because I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, gore and blood, I hate them.’ So I share my own journey, and I’m vulnerable with them about my failures. So they know that I didn’t get here without failing several things along the way. A lot of people think that those of us in successful positions have had it easy. I’m like: No. A lot of people still don’t know that I lost my mom at 22, four days before convocation. That’s devastating to anyone, right? I try to be as vulnerable as I can.

October is breast cancer awareness month. Given your research and your personal connection to the disease, is there anything special you do to mark the occasion?

I’m a breast cancer survivor. I don’t do anything to mark it per se, except that I am basically giving a bazillion talks every October. Up until I started doing the project for triple-negative breast cancer, I literally only had one pink thing to wear. I was not a pink girl. Then I started giving all these talks, and everyone was like, ‘You’ve got to wear a pink shirt.’ So now I have a wardrobe with pink options.

One last question: Any guilty pleasures you’d like to share with a national newspaper audience?

Any of the NCIS TV shows. I love those. And I’ve lately gotten a bit addicted to Hudson & Rex. My other guilty pleasure that I started during the pandemic was watching all the sappy romantic movies on the Hallmark women’s channel. That started during the pandemic because I thought, ‘I need to watch uplifting, positive things.’ They always make you laugh. They’re so stupid, you just enjoy them.

This interview has been condensed and edited.