Growing up in Scotland, Nigel Brockton envisioned one day becoming a marine biologist. But after battling a rare and deadly cancer twice before finishing college, he turned to cancer research, determined to help others reduce their risk. He was ahead of his time. Back then in the early 1990s, despite the American Cancer Society focusing on cancer prevention, many people thought that people got cancer mainly because of inherited genes and bad luck, like being struck like lightning, Brockton says.