If there's no one doing research, you are just giving your patients bad news.
On April 28, Dr. Juliet Daniel — cancer researcher, mentor, and advocate — died at sixty-one of the same metastatic breast cancer she had spent decades working to understand, particularly as it devastates Black and Hispanic women. From a postdoctoral bench at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, where she named a gene after Calypso music, to the relay tracks of Dundas, Ontario, where she led students dressed as pirates in the rain, her life refused the boundary between science and community. She was born in Barbados, shaped by the early deaths of her mother and a neighbour to cancers medicine could not yet treat, and she answered that grief not with resignation but with research, institution-building, and an insistence that discovery must reach the people most left behind.
- Triple-negative breast cancer — aggressive, under-researched, and disproportionately fatal for Black and Hispanic women — was both the subject of Dr. Daniel's most urgent science and, ultimately, the disease that claimed her life.
- Her discovery that the Kaiso gene is overabundant in triple-negative breast cancer cells, and that depleting it slows their spread, opened a concrete path toward new therapies for one of oncology's most resistant cancers.
- After her own 2009 diagnosis, she redirected her career toward health equity, becoming a translator between laboratory science and the Black women patients who needed it most — a role no institution had formally created but that she built herself.
- For years the only Black woman professor in McMaster's Faculty of Science, she co-founded the Canadian Black Scientists Network after counting just two Black scientists in a room of hundreds at a national cancer conference.
- In her final weeks, still attending Relay for Life events and urging students toward cancer research careers, she embodied the argument her life had always made: that the work of healing cannot wait for perfect conditions or perfect health.
Dr. Juliet Daniel died on April 28 at sixty-one, two months after arriving at a McMaster University Relay for Life event in a bright yellow shirt, spending nearly two hours with cancer survivors and students, and then walking the opening lap holding a banner that read: "It takes a society." She was smiling. That image — the researcher and the runner, the laboratory and the community inseparable — was the shape of everything she built.
Her scientific career began in the late 1990s at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee, where she identified a gene governing how cells grow and interact. She named it Kaiso, after the Calypso music she played during long hours at the bench. When she joined McMaster in 1999, she kept following the gene's role in cancer metastasis. Then, in 2008, she attended a conference on triple-negative breast cancer — an aggressive form that strikes young Black and Hispanic women at disproportionate rates and carries a grimmer prognosis than most. The following year, she was diagnosed with breast cancer herself. Those two moments redirected everything. She found Kaiso more abundant in triple-negative cancer cells, and that high levels correlated with poor survival. When she depleted it in the laboratory, cancer cells slowed; in animal models, they stopped spreading entirely. It was a promising drug target.
But the research was only part of what she built. She became a central figure at The Olive Branch of Hope, a Toronto organization supporting women of African ancestry with breast cancer, chairing its Medical and Scientific Committee and translating laboratory science into language meaningful to the communities most affected. Co-founder Leila Springer, who had started the organization after her own stage 3 diagnosis, said simply: "Dr. Daniel became that person" — the one who held both scientific knowledge and cultural understanding at once.
For years the only Black woman professor in McMaster's Faculty of Science, she co-founded the Canadian Black Scientists Network after counting just two Black scientists among hundreds at a national cancer conference. She mentored fiercely, recruiting students from across the Caribbean and pushing them toward leadership as well as science. Dr. Shawn Hercules, who completed his PhD in her lab after she recruited him from Barbados, remembered that she always saw potential in her students and pushed them toward it.
She was born in Barbados in 1964, the daughter of a furniture maker and a homemaker, and came to Canada in 1983 intending to become a physician. But the deaths of her neighbour and her mother — both to cancers medicine could not adequately treat — turned her toward research instead. "If there's no one doing research, you are just giving your patients bad news," she said. She earned a PhD from the University of British Columbia, fellowship in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and the Canadian Cancer Society's Inclusive Excellence Prize, while maintaining deep ties with Barbados and helping establish a laboratory there to support public health innovation.
In her final months, she continued advocating for sustained research funding, equitable representation in academia, and faster translation of discoveries to patients. At that last Relay for Life appearance, she made a final plea to the next generation to consider cancer research as a career. Then she held the banner and walked the first lap, smiling.
Dr. Juliet Daniel died on April 28, metastatic breast cancer spreading through her body at sixty-one. Two months before, she sat in a bright yellow Relay for Life shirt at McMaster University, talking with cancer survivors and students for nearly two hours, then helped lead the opening lap of the relay, holding a banner that read: "It takes a society." She was smiling.
This was the shape of her life—the research and the running, the laboratory work and the public facing, the science and the community, inseparable. Every year for a decade, she showed up to the BRIGHT Run breast cancer fundraiser in Dundas, Ontario, dressed in a pink pirate costume, plastic sword in hand, leading her team of young trainees—the "Pirates of the CUREabbean"—around a five-kilometre course. Rain or shine. Over those ten years, she and her team raised more than $125,000. Nancy McMillan, who chaired the event, remembered her this way: "When Juliet asked you to do something, you did it because she was just so determined."
Daniel spent her days in the laboratory at McMaster investigating how cancers spread to other parts of the body, focusing on colon and breast tumours. In the late 1990s, working as a postdoctoral fellow at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee, she identified a gene that influences how cells grow and interact with each other. She named it Kaiso—an older word for the Calypso music she listened to during long hours at the bench. When she moved to McMaster in 1999, she continued pursuing the gene's secrets, learning more about how it drove cancers to metastasize. But her work took a turn in 2008 when she attended a conference on triple-negative breast cancer, a particularly aggressive form that disproportionately strikes young Black and Hispanic women and carries a grimmer prognosis than other breast cancers. The following year, she was diagnosed with breast cancer herself.
Those two moments—the conference and her own diagnosis—redirected everything. She began to focus on triple-negative breast cancer and on health equity: why Black women were less likely to survive the disease. She found that Kaiso was more abundant in cells from women with triple-negative breast cancer, and that high levels correlated with poor survival. When she depleted Kaiso in cancer cells in the laboratory, their growth slowed. When she did the same in animal models, the cancer cells stopped spreading. It was a promising drug target, a potential path toward new therapies.
But the research was only part of what she built. She became deeply involved with The Olive Branch of Hope, a Toronto-based organization supporting women of African ancestry diagnosed with breast cancer. Leila Springer, the organization's co-founder, had started it twenty-seven years earlier after her own stage 3 diagnosis, searching for information and support tailored to Black women. "I needed to speak to somebody with this knowledge that would also understand our culture," Springer said. "Dr. Daniel became that person." Daniel chaired the Medical and Scientific Committee, attended events regularly, met with women undergoing treatment, and built bridges between patients and the scientific community. She talked about the importance of research and clinical trials, translating the work of the laboratory into language that made sense to the communities most affected by the disease.
She was also the only Black woman professor in McMaster's Faculty of Science for years. At a Canadian cancer conference in the early 2010s, she counted the Black scientists in the room: two, among hundreds. She called it shocking. In response, she co-founded the Canadian Black Scientists Network and served as founding director of the Canadian Multicultural LEAD Organization for Mentoring and Training. She mentored fiercely, expecting her students to be self-motivated while developing leadership and communication skills alongside their science. Dr. Shawn Hercules, who completed his PhD in her lab after she recruited him from Barbados, remembered: "She always saw whatever potential we had and pushed us to achieve that."
Daniel was born in Barbados in 1964, the daughter of a furniture maker and a homemaker. She came to Canada in 1983 to study life sciences at Queen's University, planning to attend medical school. But after her neighbour died of breast cancer in Barbados and her mother died of ovarian cancer when Juliet was twenty-one, she chose research instead. "The physicians were unable to help my mother and my neighbour, not because they weren't good, but because there were not enough drugs and therapies," she said. "If there's no one doing research, you are just giving your patients bad news." She earned a PhD in microbiology from the University of British Columbia and spent her career trying to change that equation. She earned fellowship in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the Canadian Cancer Society's Inclusive Excellence Prize. She maintained deep connections with scientists and officials in Barbados, working with breast cancer samples and clinical data from her home country, and was integral in establishing an innovative laboratory there to support public health and science innovation.
In her final months, Dr. Lisa Porter, a cancer researcher and close friend from the University of Windsor, spoke with Daniel about the big challenges facing health research: the lack of sustained funding for science, the persistent inequities at every level of academia and healthcare, the slow pace at which discoveries reach people living with cancer. "But she didn't just talk about these issues—she acted on them," Porter said. "She advocated fiercely for her students, colleagues and communities, pushed institutions to do better, and was never afraid to speak up when she felt people were not being served or treated equitably." At that Relay for Life event, less than two months before her death, Daniel made a final plea to the next generation: "I want to encourage you to consider cancer research as a career option, because we need a lot more researchers to help us find the cures that we need to treat cancer, not just in Canada, but globally." Then she held the banner and walked the first lap, smiling.
Citas Notables
When Juliet asked you to do something, you did it because she was just so determined. With fundraising, she insisted we had to go higher and she would push, but also be right there beside you to get whatever it was to the finish line.— Nancy McMillan, BRIGHT Run event chair
She didn't just talk about these issues—she acted on them. She advocated fiercely for her students, colleagues and communities, pushed institutions to do better, and was never afraid to speak up when she felt people were not being served or treated equitably.— Dr. Lisa Porter, cancer researcher and close friend
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
What made her decide to pivot from medicine to research after her mother died?
She realized that good doctors couldn't help her mother because the drugs and therapies didn't exist yet. She understood that someone had to build them. That's what sent her to the laboratory instead of medical school.
Why did triple-negative breast cancer become her focus?
She attended a conference about it in 2008 and learned it was disproportionately affecting young Black and Hispanic women with worse outcomes. Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer herself the next year. Those two things collided and changed the direction of her entire career.
What was the significance of the Kaiso gene discovery?
She found it was more abundant in triple-negative breast cancer cells, and when she removed it in the lab and in animal models, the cancer stopped spreading. It became a potential drug target—a real path toward new treatment options.
But she wasn't just a bench scientist, was she?
No. She spent as much energy building bridges between the laboratory and the communities most affected by the disease. She worked with The Olive Branch of Hope, mentored young scientists, co-founded the Black Scientists Network. She understood that research without community connection was incomplete.
What struck people most about her as a mentor?
She had high expectations and she was relentless about pushing people toward their potential. But she was also right there beside them, checking in, asking how to get them back on track. She saw something in people and wouldn't let them settle for less.
Did she ever speak about the barriers she faced?
Yes, especially in her final months. She talked about the lack of sustained funding for science, the inequities embedded at every level of academia and healthcare, how slowly discoveries reach patients. But she didn't just complain—she acted. She pushed institutions. She spoke up. She built alternatives.