Professor Georgina Long wants to “smash cancer”

It took Professor Georgina Long almost half a century to realise she had “great ideas”.

The medical oncologist became one of the country’s best-known scientists when she was named Australian of the Year alongside her professional partner, Professor Richard Scolyer. 

But the celebrated scientist insists the honour has not fundamentally transformed her life.

“To be frank, I don’t think it’s changed my life,” she tells Helen McCabe as part of FW’s Too Much podcast.

“Really, it’s just enabled me to channel my energy towards impact.”

Professor Georgina Long and Professor Richard Scolyer named joint 2024 Australians of the Year. Image credit: NSW Health Pathology.

Long runs a packed schedule. 

In the past year, she has worked as the co-medical director of Melanoma Institute Australia and published multiple articles in one of the world’s top medical journals, The New England Journal of Medicine. She’s also managed research labs, tended patients, supervised PhD students and led a clinical trials unit – to name but a few of the tickets on her dance card. 

“I’ve been trying my hardest to make the most of the year,” says Long, who sees up to 100 patients a week. “I absolutely love the work I do. I’m passionate about it.“[And so I’m] trying to make the most of the year in terms of real change, and that’s been my modus operandi.” 

An unrelenting dedication to scientific rigour fuels Long’s work ethic – and she refuses to apologise for being passionate about her job. 

“I, like no one else, want to smash cancer, right?” she says. “That’s what I’m passionate about – but I don’t want to hurt people. I don’t want to create drugs that we think are helping but don’t, [and instead] just create a whole heap of toxicity and problems for people.” 

“It’s belittled. It’s ‘enthusiastic’, it’s ‘childish’ – that’s how it’s been treated.”

Long is keenly aware of how passion is often weaponised against women. 

“It’s belittled. It’s ‘enthusiastic’, it’s ‘childish’ – that’s how it’s been treated,” she says.

For too long, these patronising attitudes held the scientist back and stopped her from recognising the full extent of her talents. 

“I did not realise I had great ideas until I was about 48,” she says. “I lived my life thinking I didn’t have great ideas and I’m not that creative. And then I realised, ‘Actually, wait a minute, this and this and this and this, and I’ve got these ideas, and I wake up with these ideas, and I make them happen’.” 

Long’s desire to share her expertise and collaborate has also, at times, stopped her from taking ownership of her achievements. 

“[My ideas would] get taken by others,” she says. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more cognisant of that. And I like to make the point, as a woman … [that it] was actually my idea because [others are] very quick to forget, particularly men, where the idea came from.

“So it wasn’t until my late 40s that I realised I actually do have great ideas and I’m really creative because I think of all these weird and wonderful things,” she adds. 

“All the trials I design … have absolutely changed practice around the world.”