By Carolynne Keenan, Contributing Writer

When Larry Keefer, Ph.D., first arrived at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) more than 40 years ago, he didn’t have a physical lab to call his own. Not immediately, anyway, due to a glitch in the construction schedule, he explained.                  

So he spent his first few years in Bethesda doing administrative work, like reviewing proposals and serving as a project officer on contracts.