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The Showalters had a chance to meet with Grant last fall. “He was able to help us, as novices in this area, to understand what his targets were and the promising direction of his work,” Lee says. The Showalters are originally from Roanoke. Janet was a physical therapy graduate of the Medical College of Virginia, while Lee was a chemical engineering graduate of the University of Virginia. They settled in Richmond where Lee began a distinguished career in the paper industry, first at Albemarle Paper and Ethyl Corporation before helping found the James River Corporation. As an engineer, Lee was duly impressed with the Medical Education Center when the couple took a ‘hard hat’ tour over the summer. The 12-story building will contain 27,000 gross square feet dedicated to cancer research. “One of the floors is a shared resource lab designed for collaboration, where a number of departments will utilize various research resources,” Lee notes. Just the kind of smart teamwork the Showalters like to see. VCU Massey Cancer Center 2011/2012 > 3