Dr. Sophia George - Understanding Race, Genetics, and Cancer

The Brain Surgeon's Take

Jul 26 2022 • 28 mins

Dr. George is an Associate Professor on the Tenure Track in the Division of Gynecological Oncology within the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine and a full member of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Sophia’s lab studies the pathogenesis of sporadic and hereditary breast, ovarian, and endometrial cancers using molecular genetics, epigenetics and transcriptomics to study the disease pathogenesis and overall outcomes of women diagnosed with these diseases.

Given that Black women with breast and ovarian cancers have inferior outcomes when compared to women of other racial groups, and understanding that there is a void in the research when it comes to studying Black women’s cancers, one of the main goals of her research has been to understand why Black women are prone to getting more aggressive cancer sub-types and how/why their responses to treatment differs from those of non-Black women. She is currently part of a multi-disciplinary team who studies the incidence of HBOC mutations in Afro-Caribbean nationals. She is a co-Leader of the women’s cancer working group in the African Caribbean Cancer Consortium and co-Principal Investigator of the Transatlantic Gynecologic Cancer Consortium.