"I learned something about myself."
A sculptor, welder, commercial boat builder, Geoff is a prostate cancer survivor. His cancer was detected through the results of a blood test that came with a routine physical examinations at Maine Medical Family Practice in Portland.
Throughout his surgery and radiation therapy, Geoff recalls being impressed by the intensity and intelligence of his care-givers. "I learned something about myself," he says, "I never lost one minute of sleep worrying about having cancer. I kept doing what I like to do and paid attention to what they told me I needed to do, and they fixed me."
Geoff says he has great respect for scientists who do basic research. "What The Jackson Laboratory is doing provides the building blocks for the information that clinical people can get their hands in building treatment programs.'"
As Geoff recognizes, biomedical research is painstaking work. And while creativity fuels new discovery, progress relies on the building blocks of data that have been gained from prior work.
Jackson Laboratory Professor Carol Bult, Ph.D., leads a research program that develops and refines databases of genetic data that provide single sources of vital information about mouse genes, tumors, physical traits and other data for researchers around the globe. She is also researching the growth and development of normal tissues to identify the key genes and pathways affected in diseases such as lung cancer.