 I still enjoy the outdoors. I have been running for years. I get up every morning and run before I come to work. I was born in Columbus, Georgia, raised there, graduated from high school there. I went to the University of Tennessee from Columbus, then transferred to the University of Texas Arlington. My plan was to be a field biologist and ultimately be a park ranger. And then my father was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. He had surgery and then had recurrence. My father-in-law was diagnosed with prostate cancer. You know, we kept them at home and so my wife and I spent time caring for them. And it was really difficult, you know, to watch them die. And they both died within six months of one another. It really had an impact. Sort of changed my picture of what would be an important thing to do in life. So I kicked off my boots and put it on my lab coat. And now I'm an immunologist. And one of the really kind of happy things for me is when I was at Washington University School of Medicine, we were working on a screening test for prostate cancer and it's our group that validated that test. And from that time forward, screening with PSA was something that many men started doing. Dr. Aleph came to Purdue in 2007. He started at Washington University, then went to the University of Iowa, and then Purdue was able to lure him over here. And in my opinion, he's absolutely elevated the reputation of the Purdue Center for Cancer Research. So there are 70 National Cancer Institute designated cancer centers in the United States. We're one of those 70. And we have kind of a unique designation. We're called a Basic Science Cancer Center. And there are only seven of those in the country. We don't treat patients, but we discover how cancer cells become cancer cells. We develop new ways to treat the cancers. We develop new ways to image. So we make the tools that others use to treat. We have like 123 members in our center. They represent 19 departments across six colleges. So it's very diverse backgrounds. But all these people come together to do one thing and that's fight cancer. The thing I enjoy the most is getting people together to do work that otherwise they wouldn't do. This person has expertise. That person has expertise. Can we bring them together and make things happen? And our center, through very generous donors, provides money to really enable them to do the experiments they need to to validate the testing that they're pursuing. So it's working. We really have an opportunity to make a major, major impact. Tyler Trent became a symbol and an inspiration to everyone in the Purdue family and to millions elsewhere. We know there's an extra ration of grit in heaven tonight. We learned about his situation, a kind of cancer called osteosarcoma. It attacks primarily young teenagers and so we got to know Tyler. His dream was to come to the Ohio State game and our center shares a suite in the football stadium. So we invited him to come to our suite and you know the outcome of that game. That was one of the most exciting games we've had in a long time and Tyler was in heaven. I'm telling you, he was just really honored across the board. It was a great experience for him. And subsequent to that, one of our investigators, Dr. Philip Lowe, developed a really special way to take cells from your body, modify them and put them back in your body so that they attack the cancer. And the first cancer we're going to treat, osteosarcoma. In the site, the company formed around that technology. It has that planned and it looks like the trial will start in May. So it's a great opportunity to honor Tyler to do something on this particular type of cancer. It can't be soon enough. As you look into the future, we're talking about cancer research. Are you optimistic? I'm very optimistic. You know, we've been here for 40 years. We have 11 drugs in clinical trials. We have some that are ready for FDA approval. We have a building next door that's the Drug Discovery Institute. And they're my own research, of course, and working with the students working in the lab. And we have a great canine oncology group here. It's a department in the School of Veterinary Medicine here at Purdue. It's always exciting. The discoveries, you never know what the experiments are going to really yield. And when they do, you find something new and it's exciting. We're always looking for cures. But certainly over the next dozen years or so, we're going to be able to make cancer a disease that we can live with. I've been watching my PSA since we were developing it as a screening test back at Washington University. As always, you know, with age, it'll increase a little bit. But mine then took a big jump. And then I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Certainly, it goes to show that nobody is immune from it. And Dr. Aleph has kind of a special knowledge of prostate cancer, but by virtue of his history and his research. I was operated on in June of 16. I was happy that we caught it early and could really treat it effectively. And as of now, I have an undetectable PSA, so I'm in good shape. I run about three miles these days. I get up at 4 a.m. every morning. It really keeps me in good physical condition. I can play with all my grandchildren and keep up with them. His story, I think, is one that I probably tell more than he does. Within one year, he lost both his father and father in a lot of cancer. From that point, he now has is in fact one of the leading researchers in cancer research, not only in the country, but in the world. I hope he's earning the recognition that he I believe deserves. In retrospect, I wouldn't have gone down this path if that hadn't occurred. But I'm sorry for the events that caused me to do it. At least a bad thing turned out for good.