00:00:00:15 - 00:00:07:18 Dr. Winn I'm Dr. Rob Winn and you're listening to Real Cancer Talk from VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center. 00:00:07:20 - 00:00:42:04 Dr. Winn Hey everybody. Good to see you all. I am with Dr. Malcolm Brock, who is the current Director of Clinical and Translational Research in Thoracic Surgery at the famous Johns Hopkins Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Well, you know, the one thing that I have to say that I'm really super excited with having Doctor Brock on is that when we talk about superheroes and superstars, he is definitely one of that long line of, adding to, what I think are some of the most important, impact players within this sort of field of, of, of cancer research. 00:00:42:06 - 00:01:01:05 Dr. Winn Now, you know, listen, you know, we're going to get into it in a minute. But, you know, he's going to hide this from you and talk about the fact that, you know, he's just...listen, this brother...It has been the most, amazing career in the context of he's done his, school of medicine, at Hopkins. He's been there as a resident. 00:01:01:05 - 00:01:17:11 Dr. Winn He's been there as a fellow. He's made an important difference. You know, he also probably won't get to the fact that, you know, he's going to we don't talk about his history just a little bit about how he even got into it, at what, you know, who were a major influence. But he may hold out on you, but I'm not going to hold on you. 00:01:17:11 - 00:01:25:16 Dr. Winn You know, he was also a Rhodes Scholar, but that that little thing we're going to get to somewhere along the line. So Dr. Brock, great to have you with us, sir.. Thank you. 00:01:25:20 - 00:01:26:03 Dr. Brock Thank you. 00:01:26:03 - 00:01:37:16 Dr. Winn And, looking forward to actually, getting to know you a little bit better. So I'm going to open up with a question. How did you wind up, first of all, getting interested in in science. 00:01:37:19 - 00:01:42:17 Dr. Winn And then how did you wind up deciding, okay, you know, being a doctor is what I want to do? 00:01:42:19 - 00:01:59:06 Dr. Brock Yeah. Yeah, those are all great questions. And, you know, a lot of it goes back to, like you say, formative influences and people that, you sort of see along the way. What happened to me was that, you know, I was born in a small place, Bermuda. And it was 00:01:59:06 - 00:02:08:17 Dr. Brock very, very tiny. My father said to me, he said, look, you know, you're not going to do much sitting here in a 20 square mile place. 00:02:08:19 - 00:02:30:05 Dr. Brock And so he had a plan. So all of us at about 15.5, 16, he said, need to leave and go to a place that they don't speak the language. No English. So I was like, what? So he said, yeah, pick a country. So I said, well, I want to go to Sweden or somewhere like that where I can ski and do all that type stuff. 00:02:30:06 - 00:03:00:00 Dr. Brock You know, and and he's like, nope, nope, nope. You got to pick somewhere where it's a little bit more serious. So I actually, and he said, you got to figure out a way to pay for it. So I applied to the rotary scholarship. I got a Rotary Exchange Scholarship. I went to Japan, the guy from Japan came to my house in Bermuda, and I learned Japanese, and, I was there for a year. 00:03:00:02 - 00:03:32:03 Dr. Brock I learned it fairly well. But not great. And then I went back every summer and learned until I really learned it. Learned how to read and write it. To the point when, I went to Princeton, I got a degree in Japanese studies, and I was all...But I also wanted to be a doctor because I had a influencer, a surgeon who I grew up with who took care of me when I actually had, an accident when I was little. 00:03:32:03 - 00:03:52:10 Dr. Brock And I was always inspired by the guy, but this new Japanese thing was in here. So what I did. That's how I got the Rhodes Scholar. I applied to go to Oxford. I got I got deferred admission to Hopkins, and then I said, you know what? I really want to explore this Japanese thing because I read and write it. 00:03:52:10 - 00:04:06:18 Dr. Brock And so I went to...as a as a rotary, I'm sorry, as a Rhodes Scholar and spent two years doing Japanese research. And I wrote a book in Japanese research. 00:04:06:20 - 00:04:07:12 Dr. Winn What? 00:04:07:14 - 00:04:23:20 Dr. Brock Yeah, I wrote a book called Biotechnology in Japan and gave all these talks all over the place. And that stoked the academic side, because I realized, oh my goodness, there are a whole bunch of people here doing academics. 00:04:23:21 - 00:04:48:23 Dr. Brock This is sort of cool. I mean, you know, curious about everything. You're asking questions. You're becoming an expert. People are paying you to read and to lecture. This is really, really cool. But, I gave and the way that I got to medical school because when I was there, everybody said, look, stay here, get your PhD. I will bring you on faculty. 00:04:49:00 - 00:05:20:13 Dr. Brock Spend your life doing Japanese studies. And I was that close to doing it. I had a deferred admission to Hopkins, but, I mean, I was that close. And what happened was this...The master's degree at Oxford, because it's Oxford, what they do is that they get luminaries from around the country to come and hear your talk. So I'm giving my talk to the Japanese ambassador to the to the UK. 00:05:20:15 - 00:05:47:10 Dr. Brock He comes takes a day out of his schedule. Yes. The ambassador because it's Oxford. So he comes and he listens to little me talking about Japanese biotechnology. And so question to answers go. Everything goes great. I give the you know and they're like okay you're going to get this. After the talk he basically pulled me aside, took me outside and said, what are you doing? 00:05:47:10 - 00:06:17:08 Dr. Brock And I was like, what do you mean, what am I doing? He said, you know, you've learned our language. You're obviously, you know, a talented guy in terms of being able to do this in such a short period time. You can read and write. Why are you going to spend your life essentially studying people like me who are doing things in Japan and so forth, etc. because at that time I was doing I was doing Japanese politics and economics and so forth. 00:06:17:10 - 00:06:48:16 Dr. Brock He said, you go out and make a name for yourself. You go and make the world work. You don't watch other people making the world work. And I was like, wow. And it's so happen that that was right about the time when I had to tell Hopkins, either I'm coming or I'm not coming. And literally the next day I remember to this day I sent them a message and I said, I'm coming. 00:06:48:18 - 00:07:31:09 Dr. Brock And I packed up and I left, and then I've been here ever since. And that was 1987, because I actually got into Hopkins in 1985, and that was a two year sort of hiatus, and 1987 and I never left. And so now I actually am a professor of surgery at Joon Tendo University in Tokyo, and I go to Tokyo usually two weeks a year, teach lecture, do research and so forth in Tokyo, in fact, you know, we try to do grants and so forth, etc. but I'm a I'm a professor there and I use my Japanese almost every day. 00:07:31:11 - 00:07:35:05 Dr. Brock So, so, so I sort of put it together at the end. 00:07:35:07 - 00:07:36:08 Dr. Winn Wow. 00:07:36:10 - 00:08:02:07 Dr. Winn So listen, I am fascinated by a couple things. And in fact, this is the the month, obviously, where we're reflecting on many of the people, particularly African-Americans, that have made many contributions. As you were thinking about that, you know, it sounds like not only was your dad a big influencer. But that where it sounds that where you were getting your role models, but from very different places. 00:08:02:09 - 00:08:13:11 Dr. Brock Yeah, yeah. So there were and that's the big point, right? The big point is, is that you can find soulmates and people that inspire you in multiple different places. 00:08:13:11 - 00:08:27:17 Dr. Brock Not even does it have to be in this generation, right. It could be past people. Like for example, Charles Drew, who is, you know, an African-American surgeon here who has done so much, you know, Daniel Hale Williams, you know, all of these guys are... 00:08:27:22 - 00:08:29:00 Dr. Brock Daniel William, yeah. 00:08:29:01 - 00:08:55:19 Dr. Brock Right, yeah, I mean, these guys, you know, they actually made the groundwork for what we're doing today. And if anybody thinks that they got to and especially Black History Month, you think you got to where you are based on your own self, you got another thought coming. And that is, I think, a key, key thing that young people need to really understand. 00:08:55:19 - 00:09:15:01 Dr. Brock And take note that, you know, the the way has been path, of the path that has been already paid for you. I mean, paved some in some instances so that all you have to do is just get in your car and keep on going. Whereas before, not only they were walking, sometimes, you know, they they couldn't they had to crawl. 00:09:15:03 - 00:09:15:23 Dr. Winn Yes. 00:09:16:00 - 00:09:34:09 Dr. Brock So to so these are very, very important things. Now, my father, he's still alive, he's 93. And my father in fact, was at that. He actually came up, and sat in on that, that, that lecture I gave. 00:09:34:11 - 00:09:35:07 Dr. Brock Wow. 00:09:35:08 - 00:09:40:07 Dr. Brock And, and I talk to him every day still. And so, you know, that's another thing, right? 00:09:40:11 - 00:09:55:08 Dr. Brock Having important black role models are very, very important. And, you know, the thing about Black History Month in the black experience is that, you know, it's not just about who looks like you. 00:09:55:10 - 00:09:56:18 Dr. Winn Come on. 00:09:56:20 - 00:10:20:02 Dr. Brock Right. It's the fact that these guys went through struggles that you can understand, and you're going through their struggles and you get inspiration from that. So, you know, you can find a lot of people that went through struggles. They don't have to look just like you. And then you can then get inspiration from that. We are part of the human family. 00:10:20:04 - 00:10:21:15 Dr. Winn Yes. Yes. 00:10:21:15 - 00:10:27:15 Dr. Brock And that this human family has a lot of different assets and facets to it. 00:10:27:17 - 00:10:28:02 Dr. Winn Yes. 00:10:28:02 - 00:10:51:10 Dr. Brock And what I've learned from an early age, being immersed and speaking Japanese, being in that culture is, wow, they might you might think that it's a completely different culture, but when it gets down to brass tacks, relationships between each other, we're all one. 00:10:51:12 - 00:11:23:00 Dr. Winn Oh man, I love that. By the way. It reminds me, that you were, president of the historic society called the Society of Black Academic Surgeons. Can you tell me a little bit about that, organization, your role, and where do you think, as we're thinking about the future of particularly African-American surgeons and the roles and maybe even some of the the, not only the, the accomplishments, but some of the challenges ahead. 00:11:23:03 - 00:11:37:05 Dr. Winn But if you could talk to me a little bit, because as a, as a president, as a former president of the Society of Black Academic Surgeons, you were looking at the field, right? So if you can help us a little bit, understand that organization, what are some of the things you're most proud of when you were president? 00:11:37:08 - 00:11:45:10 Dr. Winn But as you're thinking about surgery, our advancements and some of the challenges still ahead, you know, just tackling that for a little bit. 00:11:45:12 - 00:11:46:17 Dr. Brock Yeah. So ASBAS is a 00:11:46:17 - 00:12:21:24 Dr. Brock very interesting organization. The Society of Black Academic Surgeons, we call it ASBAS for short. It's an acronym and it was actually founded with one thing in mind. The idea was that too many African Americans, when they went to medical school, we're not really understanding what it was to be an academic. They were beguiled essentially by money and by wealth, and would very quickly go into private practice, especially in surgery, because the differential, it's huge. 00:12:22:01 - 00:12:51:19 Dr. Brock So an academic surgeon, often, especially back in, let's say, the 1990s, 2000, right around that time, a surgeon could make three, 4 or 5 times as much money in private practice than he could doing academics. And so people, weren't understanding the merits of academics, especially in the black community and black medical students. They just couldn't see it. 00:12:51:21 - 00:13:10:14 Dr. Brock Because how can you see it when you got all these loans? You got all of these things that are sitting in front of you. And you're the first person to go off to college, let alone to go to medical school. How can you see spending more time and doing academic medicine and, you know, not getting a paycheck commensurate with that? 00:13:10:14 - 00:13:55:21 Dr. Brock So ASBAS was made to introduce to medical students and to residents, all of the benefits and the incredible lifestyle of being an academic, especially an academic surgeon. And so, it is largely a mentoring organization. And that's how it started, where we teach young people, look, look how fun it is to discover what's happening in a patient take...by taking it to the bench, working it out a mouse, and then bringing it back to the clinic and having something new. 00:13:55:23 - 00:14:27:24 Dr. Brock And this whole idea of how you go from bed to bedside back to bed is an idea that Halsted essentially started here at Hopkins. So for me, it was natural because I was brought up in medical school thinking that that's the way it should go. And then I saw it ASBAS, I'm saying the same thing. And then I realized, well, you know, this isn't something that every medical school does or everybody sort of aligns with. 00:14:28:01 - 00:15:01:06 Dr. Brock And it was a natural fit. And my passion, about ASBAS is that, you know, still and as you know, Levi Watkins was my mentor. And Levi Watkins is, pretty much, he was the first cardiac surgeon, black cardiac surgeon at Johns Hopkins. And I was the second. So Doctor Watkins didn't cut me any slack, and and and and and it was on the oral tradition of ABSAS. 00:15:01:08 - 00:15:24:06 Dr. Brock Right? And what is that? Charles Drew, who was one of the, who's essentially, you know, the person that we look up to at ASBAS, what did he say? He said, excellence of achievement will always, always eclipse the artificial barriers imposed by a man. 00:15:24:08 - 00:15:25:13 Dr. Winn Oh, absolutely. 00:15:25:17 - 00:15:52:12 Dr. Brock It's all about excellence. It's all about excellence. It's not about affirmative action. It's about excellence, excellence, excellence, excellence. And you got to have excellence as the bottom line before anything else happens. And if you don't have excellence, then you can't even come to the table. You're not legitimate. And that's what this whole problem is now. So you're saying what is ASBAS doing...ASBAS is doing what it's always done. 00:15:52:17 - 00:16:15:08 Dr. Brock It's saying, look, it is not about getting a seat at the table because of your race or, you know, because you know, some other accolade that's not associated with excellence. You're getting that seat at the table because you are excellent in what you do. You're the best of the best. You have to be the best of the best. 00:16:15:10 - 00:16:38:17 Dr. Brock And until you're the best of the best, you got to pass your dues. You got you got to get to be the best of the best before you can come to the table. And that's been ASBAS’ model. So we have no problem with looking towards the future because that recipe got our guys through. And if you go back and look about what they had to go through, this is peanuts. 00:16:38:19 - 00:16:57:23 Dr. Winn Come on man. You know, I love what you said. And in fact, I love that it's clear that there's passion for excellence and the impact. And I wanted to talk to you a little bit about some of your research interests, because I know you've been at it. Listen, you've been chopping wood for a little bit in the context of, you know, the novel molecular biomarkers. 00:16:57:23 - 00:17:17:15 Dr. Winn We were working biomarkers in solid tumors. And we've been doing and you've had some recent amazing, you know, publications. So I just want you to know translate now because what I loved about what you said about Halstead and the forming of Hopkins, it's one of the epicenters of translation. So as we go back and and take a look about your research interest... 00:17:17:17 - 00:17:23:00 Dr. Winn How does that translate to your research interests? And what’s the most exciting thing you have going on right now. 00:17:23:02 - 00:17:32:13 Dr. Brock Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll take it. I'll take that in two parts, a little bit about how we got to where we are and where we're going. So, what I decided to do, 00:17:32:15 - 00:17:50:13 Dr. Brock was tackle a clinical question when I came out of residency. And the clinical question that bothered me the most was operating on somebody and then them dying 2 or 3 weeks later, about 2 or 3 months later from metastatic disease, after I told them the operation went great, we got it all. 00:17:50:15 - 00:18:20:13 Dr. Brock How could we get it all, and then you're dead in a year or less? And I said, it's got to be that we're missing something. We got to be missing something. And at that time, epigenetics was just starting. And, so I went, I asked someone, you know, who's looking at epigenetics and, turns out there was, a PhD was MD, PhD, but he never really practice name Stephen Baylin. 00:18:20:15 - 00:18:21:19 Dr. Winn Oh my God, yes. 00:18:22:00 - 00:18:34:24 Dr. Brock And Stephen Baylin. And guess what? You know where his office is right there on the other side of this wall. I can knock and he'll run. And he's he's he's in his 80s. 00:18:35:01 - 00:18:36:06 Dr. Winn He's amazing. 00:18:36:08 - 00:18:58:06 Dr. Brock So, so so I said, I came and I said, Steve, here's what I'm interested in doing. I'm trying to figure out biomarkers. I want to I don't want this happen to my patients. I want something that's prognostic. If I can tell if there's minimal residual disease. And this is back, you know, in the late 90s. So Steve said come on board and learn this. 00:18:58:08 - 00:19:31:24 Dr. Brock So it took me, probably about 6 or 7 years to really learn stuff. And then I published a first author, New England Journal of Medicine, article. And that was a turning point for me because that showed me that I could actually be a surgeon, operate yet publish in the best of the best excellence of achievement in science, where I can take a translational idea, because back then that wasn't a thing. 00:19:32:01 - 00:19:51:17 Dr. Brock In fact, people didn't like people who had one foot in one door, and just put another foot in another. And I remember a couple people saying, look, this is not going to work. Either you go one field or the other and was you know, there's no such way in between. And this all this translational stuff has come later. 00:19:51:19 - 00:19:52:11 Dr. Winn Yes. 00:19:52:13 - 00:20:30:04 Dr. Brock Right? And it's so, so, so I started looking at biomarkers and then, epigenetic biomarkers. But and what was very interesting to us was that epigenetics is reversible. So I started to say, oh, well, what if we use a therapy. And so Steve and I and others, we started looking at epigenetic therapy. And so then I got really, really deep into that looking and we had a couple of trials going where all of a sudden on epigenetic therapy. 00:20:30:04 - 00:21:01:09 Dr. Brock In fact we published one of the first studies in cancer discovery, in 2011 I believe it was, that showed objective responses using just epigenetic therapy in people with metastatic lung cancer, any metastatic solid tumor. We started to see lung cancers go away, essentially with epigenetic therapy. And then what we saw that was really intriguing. I'll tell you one quick story. 00:21:01:11 - 00:21:29:11 Dr. Brock In this trial, you know, we had most people didn't respond. Most people we sent to hospice after a couple of weeks and three years later, I'm walking through the hospital and we see this person coming up and I'm with my nurses. And I said that looks like XYZ, Mr. Smith we'll call him, who we sent to hospice three years ago. 00:21:29:13 - 00:21:53:02 Dr. Brock And the nurse said, either that's him or his twin. That's him. And I went up to him and I said, he said, Doctor Brock, you know, nurse So-and-so. And I was like, what? He says, yeah, I should be dead, right? And I said, yeah, what's going on? I said, well, I went back to hospice. You would send me to home hospice. 00:21:53:04 - 00:22:08:06 Dr. Brock And I sort of felt okay. So I went a couple weeks later to my regular GP. He didn't know what to do with me, so he gave me the exact same thing that he had given me before and it didn't work. And he said, guess what? It worked. 00:22:08:08 - 00:22:10:00 Dr. Winn Wow. 00:22:10:02 - 00:22:19:06 Dr. Brock And I was like, what? I call the GP. Sure enough, the guy had gotten, I think, Cisplatin. 00:22:19:08 - 00:22:23:06 Dr. Brock And maybe it was, it was a taxane. 00:22:23:08 - 00:22:39:03 Dr. Brock And then he'd, he gave him Carboplatin and then he gave him like taxotere right, a different taxane. So he just changed the platin drug and the taxane drug. Complete response. And then it's like, oh my God, I'm going to go back and start calling. 00:22:39:03 - 00:23:08:07 Dr. Brock So I start calling all of these patients and unbelievably many of them were alive. Same same thing, same thing. And the excitement you get from that type of discovery, then starts to become, I mean, it's almost like a drug, right? And you start to realize that what you're actually doing with this therapy is priming for something to happen. 00:23:08:07 - 00:23:39:03 Dr. Brock Now, we know that priming has everything to do with priming the immune system. We had no idea. We had no idea. All we knew was that the epigenetic therapy was doing something, and that we were seeing this secondary result. And, so, you know, and some people went on to get immune, immunotherapy and they completely responded. So that then really kept us going. 00:23:39:03 - 00:24:10:24 Dr. Brock So I spent the next sort of, bit of time trying to figure out what epigenetic therapy was all about, what it was doing, and how I could make that again into my surgical practice, like I say, to prevent recurrence. And that's when I published, a nature paper where I was the senior author, in 2020, saying essentially that what was happening was that epigenetic therapy did two very important things. 00:24:11:01 - 00:24:49:18 Dr. Brock It prevented the immune system and mainly myeloid cells like MDSCs, from going into the pre metastatic niche, into the area where you're going to get mass metastasis. It prevent that from happening because what happens, as you know, is that after surgery what happens is that a home is made for you. It just doesn't happen. It's not like, you know, the cancer cells, the jet propelled machine that sort of goes, no, what happens is that the cancer cell communicates to our immune system, hijacks them, hijacks, especially MDSCs, which are the immature cells. 00:24:49:18 - 00:24:57:22 Dr. Brock Right? Like you would hijack, you know, an immature kid that's not listen to you, but he'll listen to some of his friends talk, right? 00:24:57:24 - 00:24:58:11 Dr. Winn That's right. 00:24:58:17 - 00:25:27:21 Dr. Brock So it hijacks this, and it creates a niche a pre metastatic niche. And then that is where the cancer finds its home because then it becomes immunosuppressed environment. And so we've now taken that concept. And we are now looking to do a clinical trial based on preventing the pre metastatic niche from forming. And so you know, we're hoping that that's going to be something that we can do. 00:25:27:21 - 00:25:54:16 Dr. Brock And so it can really help, immunotherapy. So you know when patients get immunotherapy some of them are helped. But the majority aren't. And we're hoping that by priming and also by preventing the pre metastatic niche from forming, at least after surgery, that double hit will then translate into decreased five year survival. I’m sorry, increased 5-year. 00:25:54:16 - 00:26:14:24 Dr. Brock So yeah so so that's one thing that sort of gotten us to where we are in terms of what we're doing on that end. But that's not the most exciting thing that we have discovered actually. So, we are the most discovery, you ask what the thing that's sort of driving us in the morning now to get up. 00:26:14:24 - 00:26:35:08 Dr. Brock And what we have discovered is that, there's a huge, connection between our autonomic nervous system and cancer. And. Yeah, and the idea that, I mean, if you ask, you know, how many people, how many neurologists 00:26:35:10 - 00:26:38:21 Dr. Brock are really studying cancer? Not many in this country. 00:26:38:23 - 00:26:39:03 Dr. Winn Right? 00:26:39:03 - 00:26:42:22 Dr. Brock How many, how many psychiatrists are really studying cancer? 00:26:42:24 - 00:26:43:14 Dr. Winn Not many. 00:26:43:17 - 00:26:57:24 Dr. Brock Not many. And what we have found, is that we have found what seems to be, a, a connection between the two. 00:26:58:01 - 00:27:18:20 Dr. Brock That has a lot to do with not only how our autonomic nervous system works, but how it actually interacts with the immune system to actually cause cancer. And, it is, you know, I don't want to go way into it yet. 00:27:18:22 - 00:27:50:15 Dr. Brock But, the bottom, bottom line is that this is a new approach, and we, we actually, the, Cancer Grand Challenge, is a huge organization worldwide that, tries to get people to, so with these sorts of ideas, and that is one thing that sort of really helped us, last year to create a big group, that, started to do this and it's a worldwide group. 00:27:50:15 - 00:28:27:21 Dr. Brock So this morning, for example, I was on the phone to France, and to Belgium, and as well as the UK and, we have used this large group that was part of the Cancer Grand Challenge. We didn't get it, but we used that platform to now develop this very much forward. And so. Yeah. And so we're finding that, there is a lot of, synergy between what people around the world sort of everybody's sort of been looking at it like the blind man right on the elephant. 00:28:27:21 - 00:28:56:02 Dr. Brock Right. Somebody has been feeling this, somebody feeling that somebody can feel in the trunk and and so forth. And so we're able to come together now and try to ask the question, you know, how does, may even a genetic predisposition to a defect in your autonomic nervous system have an impact on cancer? And what we're finding, again, is that it's the host. 00:28:56:04 - 00:29:32:07 Dr. Brock So for I'll give you a quick idea. Okay. I'll go to Japan. You'll find that 98 to 99% of all people, already infected with H. Pylori. So why there's only 10% of cases of stomach cancer happen? Right? I mean, everybody, everybody should have it right? It's got to be that there's something about the host. 00:29:32:09 - 00:29:34:00 Dr. Winn Okay. 00:29:34:02 - 00:29:38:22 Dr. Brock Similarly you look at HPV lots of people are infected with HPV. 00:29:38:22 - 00:29:51:08 Dr. Brock How many get it? Look at look at hepatitis. Not everybody who gets hepatitis gets it. You can do the same with esophageal cancer. 00:29:51:10 - 00:29:53:04 Dr. Winn Yep yep that's true. 00:29:53:08 - 00:30:11:18 Dr. Brock So why do these small subsets. And we believe that the host and certain genes that we found that run in multiple families, large cohorts probably have something to do with it. 00:30:11:20 - 00:30:26:17 Dr. Winn Oh that's awesome. Oh I listen I am going to stay tuned with that. Listen. Thank you. What I love about what you just talked about is how the field continues to advance. In fact, my last three questions for you was... 00:30:26:17 - 00:30:53:18 Dr. Winn What has been the one thing I know, there's been a ton of things in the last x number of years in the field of thoracic oncology, that has been what you think may be one of the biggest advancements. Now, we know that they're more than just one. But just for the sake of argument, what's the one of many? But what's the one biggest advancement that you've seen in your career in the field of how we treat patients or the outcomes in thoracic oncology? 00:30:53:20 - 00:30:59:00 Dr. Brock Yeah, I think it has to be, you know, the fact that the our own immune systems 00:30:59:02 - 00:31:31:20 Dr. Brock that God has given us everything we need to beat cancer, right? I mean, it's not like something else is coming in there and being cancer. Our own immune system is waking up and beating cancer. And so for me, it's the idea that cancer is, so, devious and so tricky that it has the ability to suppress the immune system so that and to use the immune system against the body for its own glory and its own benefit. 00:31:32:00 - 00:32:06:06 Dr. Brock So that I think is huge, right? That whole concept that, you know, we're dealing with, this thing, that is going to try every way it can to beat you. And so and, and the immune system is one really good example. I mean, because, you know, early in the day, I remember and I remember first microarrays, when we were looking at, non-small cell lung cancer, again, with epigenetic therapy and so forth. 00:32:06:08 - 00:32:29:12 Dr. Brock I remember running into Steve's office and saying, you know, Steve, I've gotten all this, but it doesn't make sense. I think we made a mistake, and I'm sorry I wasted some of this money because it's all immune genes that upregulated, so I said, this can't be right. And, and and he said, well, look at it. 00:32:29:12 - 00:32:46:24 Dr. Brock And I said, well, you know, and it sort of went to the bottom of the pile. And I never looked at anything. Right. It was all these neoantigen. I was like, what do you mean? That makes no sense. I mean, that's not p53. I mean, what's going on? 00:32:47:01 - 00:32:48:04 Dr. Winn And I love that. 00:32:48:06 - 00:33:08:14 Dr. Brock So I think so I think the idea that the immune system can be manipulated, our own immune system to conquer cancer is really, really, really important. And I, and I hope that with that knowledge, we can make it a chronic disease and then, of course, annihilate it. 00:33:08:16 - 00:33:40:15 Dr. Winn Absolutely. Last two questions I know we're wrapping things up. If this is, being reflective on, African-American history is black History Month. If you had a look at and I know there probably again, a number maybe even in the hundreds, but if you had to just think of someone, I mean, you, you've mentioned them. I mean, you know, people like LaSalle Lefall, I mean, maybe like doctor, I mean, we've had if you had to go back and sort of say to remind young people of maybe someone in the past or someone even currently, who might that person be? 00:33:40:17 - 00:33:48:17 Dr. Brock You know, it's got to be Martin Luther King. And the thing that they got to do is read Letter from a Birmingham Jail. 00:33:48:19 - 00:33:53:10 Dr. Winn Yes, man, that Letter from a Birmingham Jail, I mean, it should be a must read, right. 00:33:53:12 - 00:34:00:11 Dr. Brock That that's the bottom line, right? I mean, if it's one thing and if it's one letter of it's one piece of work, 00:34:00:13 - 00:34:27:01 Dr. Brock every single person needs to go black or white needs to read that letter and understand it. Because essentially what it says, and I don't want to paraphrase it, but it's what I get from that is that if you are the majority and you have power, any human being, I mean apes do it. 00:34:27:03 - 00:34:31:13 Dr. Brock You're going to try and subject the minority period. 00:34:31:15 - 00:34:32:11 Dr. Winn To what happens. 00:34:32:12 - 00:35:04:09 Dr. Brock You look at an ape. I mean an ape essentially tries to dominate fellow apes. Humans are more subtle. And the idea that humans have all throughout history of always trying to dominate another human. Man always tries to subjugate another man, and they're going to find anything, anything to make them feel better, and to subhuman, or make another person feel like they're not human. 00:35:04:10 - 00:35:15:08 Dr. Brock Now, in our country, we use race. But I would say in other countries they use religion, and other countries they even use how you speak ethnicity. 00:35:15:10 - 00:35:17:22 Dr. Winn It's true. Your tribe right? 00:35:17:24 - 00:35:19:21 Dr. Brock Right. 00:35:19:22 - 00:35:43:17 Dr. Brock You go to Africa, I remember one of my first times I went to Africa. It was so funny. We're sitting here in Kenya and, my wife was in the Peace Corps. And so I was courting her, so I knew I wanted to marry her. So I ran over there. She was in Cameroon. I went over there and, I'll tell you the Cameroon stories. 00:35:43:17 - 00:36:00:19 Dr. Brock I'm over there and I'm sitting down, because I, I'm trying to, you know, court her and make sure that, you know, I had the same experience of that, you know, all the life we talk to our kids, we can talk about Cameroon and so forth, etc. all that was going through my mind. So I took I actually paid the money. 00:36:00:21 - 00:36:08:11 Dr. Brock In fact, to be honest with you, that was one of the reasons why the Rhodes Scholarship was so great was it was closer to Africa. 00:36:08:13 - 00:36:32:01 Dr. Brock I was like, oh, I think I could take a trip from here and go back and forth. So yeah, I'm just being real. But but anyway, so so I remember sitting down. Never forget it with this, you know, my wife was, you know, coming to pick us to, to to to, meet me or what have you. 00:36:32:01 - 00:37:00:04 Dr. Brock And I got fairly friendly with this one guy who's from Cameroon, and he was just a random guy who sat on the stool right on sort of the the wall by my hotel. And every time I came out, I would see this guy, you know, he wasn't doing anything and I would speak to him, you know, speak back and forth after about a week, you know, I'm sitting there waiting for my wife to come and he said, you know, I like you. 00:37:00:06 - 00:37:23:10 Dr. Brock And I said, well, why is that? He said, because you remind me of my clan, Kikuyu. You you are not Kikuyu, but you remind me of Kikuyu. You are great. He said, you see that guy? I said, yeah, he said, I don't like him. I said, well, why not? He said, you can see how he walks and he talks. 00:37:23:10 - 00:37:54:12 Dr. Brock That's this other clan. And you mentioned to tribe. Terrible people, I hate them. Okay. Then I said, well, how about me? He said, well, you know, I like you because, you are like the guys who are in Mombasa. And then I come to find out Mombasa has a lot of mixture. And, and he said, you know, and you know, all of us African Americans, you know, we have a lot of mixture. 00:37:54:14 - 00:37:55:14 Dr. Winn A lot of mixture. 00:37:55:16 - 00:38:11:02 Dr. Brock Right? A lot of mixture. Right? So he then said to me, he said, and from Mombasa, I like that tribe. So he was making all these assumptions based on how you look. 00:38:11:04 - 00:38:12:07 Dr. Winn That's right. 00:38:12:09 - 00:38:27:05 Dr. Brock And and and and and he was able to essentially look at what was around him and make these judgments about people not based on the individual, but based on the group. 00:38:27:07 - 00:38:28:21 Dr. Winn Based on the group. 00:38:28:23 - 00:38:33:22 Dr. Brock Which is exactly what man does all the time. 00:38:33:24 - 00:38:34:15 Dr. Winn Yes. 00:38:34:17 - 00:39:08:12 Dr. Brock And they denigrate the whole group without seeing people as individuals. And that's where the Letter from a Birmingham Jail is so important, because it basically says, look, Martin Luther King said this. He said, I can't talk to a mob. You try to talk to a mob, you're going to get lynched. But individually, you pull out the individuals from that mob and you will find that their daughters and your daughters are doing the same thing that you're you're, the things that you are struggling with, they're struggling with. 00:39:08:12 - 00:39:42:22 Dr. Brock We're human. The same human things that bind us by each other. And individually, we like each other and we can have a conversation and we can even be best friends. And that's that's what we have to evolve into. And it just seems we're devolving into looking at groups and making assumptions about groups and, and, and, and, and we have to be careful on the side of people that have been oppressed not to do the same thing. 00:39:42:24 - 00:39:58:23 Dr. Winn Ah man, listen, you make a great point. It's this whole concept that, you know, I usually say that one team with one fight, when it's all of us, we really good things to go. So. So, Dr. Brock, I'm going to end with this last question. What brings you the most hope? 00:39:59:00 - 00:40:08:18 Dr. Brock Yeah, that's a great question. I tell you again, to me it's Martin Luther King again. And what did he say? 00:40:08:20 - 00:40:16:21 Dr. Brock The long arc. Right? The long arc. I think he's said of moral conscience. 00:40:16:23 - 00:40:17:14 Dr. Winn That’s right. 00:40:17:16 - 00:40:19:18 Dr. Brock Always bends. 00:40:19:20 - 00:40:21:07 Dr. Winn Always to the side of justice. 00:40:21:07 - 00:40:53:18 Dr. Brock To the side of justice, right, and to the righteous. So I think that we're going through a time where things are fluctuating based on a lot of different reasons, but that eventually... I mean, you cannot. I mean, evil slash is not how most of how the world has worked and what the big books talk about. In Christianity, what's the most powerful force? Love. 00:40:53:20 - 00:40:54:17 Dr. Winn Love. 00:40:54:19 - 00:41:27:14 Dr. Brock And so I think this idea, again, of loving the individual, having love in the heart, praying for those who are oppressing you is the way to go, and that eventually things are all going to swing back to where all of the things that have guided the world for the last millennium or more are going to continue to guide. Two steps backwards, or maybe, two steps forward, maybe one step backwards. 00:41:27:16 - 00:41:38:20 Dr. Brock But I think that is what gives me hope. And that I don't think I think this is a short term thing, not a long term, retraction. 00:41:38:22 - 00:41:54:12 Dr. Winn Man, listen, this has been the most fun. I'm going to have to do this again with you. So listen, thank you for sharing your wisdom, sharing your time with us. And as I said, thank you so much. And for your insight, man. I really appreciate you. 00:41:54:14 - 00:42:15:15 Dr. Brock Well, I appreciate you, you know, highlighting this for Black History Month. And, you know, again, I think that, we want talent from everybody. And if we don't get our talent from our young black medical students who are absolutely, you know, thriving. And if they don't go into academic medicine, we're losing out. 00:42:15:17 - 00:42:17:12 Dr. Winn We're...all of us... 00:42:17:14 - 00:42:19:03 Dr. Brock All of us are losing out. 00:42:19:05 - 00:42:39:16 Dr. Winn So thank you. So this was, the, podcast or the, the Cancer Letter, you know, that there will also be, written a, companion with this. So, again, I want to thank you for being this and doing this. We’re reflecting back on Black History Month, this is one of the things we I've been doing now for, I don't know, a few years. 00:42:39:18 - 00:42:43:14 Dr. Winn Congratulations to letter. And so we're going to continue this. So again appreciate you.