In spring 1976, Building 472 at Frederick Cancer Research Center (FCRC) buzzed with activity as crews delivered and installed scientific equipment. Girded by steam pipes and bounded on one side by a narrow, one-lane road, the hulking brick structure had been among those vacated when the biowarfare program at Fort Detrick—its previous occupant—shut down. But its new life was about to begin.

The bureaucracy of Fort Detrick had transitioned from death to life. So said the Washington Post in October 1971, when President Richard M. Nixon converted the Army base’s old biowarfare laboratories into a center for life-saving cancer research. Many observers agreed it was an ambitious, hopeful vision. But what they didn’t know is that representatives from the Department of Defense and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) had been working on the transition for months.

NCI has produced a new documentary-style video marking 10 years since it gave the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research its current name.

There are times where opportunities are not present in our environment, so sometimes it’s necessary to make them. Like the famous paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson said, “one must take initiative in life to achieve what he or she wants.” That is exactly what Laura Prestia, Ph.D., and her colleagues, Robert Sons, Ph.D., and Alan Alfano, Ph.D., did in 2016 when they started the Technology Transfer Ambassadors Program (TTAP).

Test your home for radon. I could think of at least 10 reasons why I didn’t want to. It was something else to add to the endless to-do list. The test kit would be expensive. If the test showed high levels, addressing the radon problem would be more expensive. In short, it was going to be a pain. But as it happens, it wasn’t.