Richmond's Susan Murakami wipes away tears.
Her sadness is understandable.
The 47-year-old teacher lost her younger sister, Jennifer Tasaka, 43, in February from a rare and aggressive form of stomach cancer.
Initially, the doctors thought Tasaka was suffering from indigestion or some other form of gastro-intestinal problem.
However, Murakami said, Tasaka was soon vomiting violently and losing a lot of weight.
In January 2010, Tasaka was diagnosed with an invasive form of stomach cancer.
"Being a registered nurse, Jennifer knew it wasn't good," Murakami said softly. "She fought hard to live and endured painful and aggressive chemotherapy."
Two days before Tasaka was set to have surgery to remove part of her stomach, her already devastated family found out the cancer had spread all over her body.
"She was taken so early, it didn't make sense to any of us," said Murakami.
"We didn't know that her cancer was hereditary because we didn't know we had a genetic link to this cancer."
Murakami later learned that there are a lot of gastro-intestinal problems on her mother's side of the family - something that Murakami and her siblings were not previously aware of.
"Had Jennifer known about the family history, she could have told her doctor," Murakami said.
Tasaka didn't want her death to be in vain and urged her siblings to get tested.
"I go yearly for a gastropathy test, and all of our children (her siblings' children, as well as her two children, 18 and 14), have to be tested at the age of 32," she said.
While grieving the death of her beloved little sister, Murakami wondered if there were any ways to honour her sister's spirit and love of life.
"I thought to myself, how could I move forward and keep her memory alive," she said.
The first thing she did was join the Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life with her friend, Lorna Lee, who happens to be a recruiter for BC Generations Project.
This new initiative is a part of a national program called the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow (CPT), which aims to compile the health information and biological samples of 300,000 Canadian adults (ages 35 to 69) from all walks of life. (BC Generations Project is seeking to recruit 40,000 residents.)
"The focus of this large scale study is on prevention," said Dr. Marilyn Borugian, director for BC Generations Project and a senior scientist in cancer control research at the BC Cancer Agency.
"This is a 25-year research in which we will coordinate efforts across the country to help find causes of cancer and other chronic diseases.
"The benefits of doing this study are huge because it will help us learn much more about how environment, lifestyles and genes contribute to both cancer and chronic diseases."
To take part in the study, Borugian said participants will have to fill out a health questionnaire, answering questions about their health and lifestyle, including occupation, diet, physical activity, smoking, drinking and other habits.
"It requires a long-term commitment because participants have to be willing, in future intervals, to be available for more information, or to provide blood and urine samples," Borugian added.
"When it comes to pass, 30 years from now say, young scientists will be able to go back in time and get the blood samples and information from these participants to help with early detections for diabetes, cancer and a host of other diseases for future generations."
Eventually, provinces across Canada will pool their data and samples to analyze their findings.
Meanwhile, Murakami made a call and a BC Generations Project package came in the mail a few days later.
It included a consent document, an information brochure, a questionnaire and measuring tape.
Murakami said it took her less than 30 minutes to fill out the questionnaire.
She also chose to go to a BC Generations Project clinic (optional for participants), for body baseline measurements, such as bone density, grip strength, blood pressure, heart rate and body fat percentage.
"It was really straightforward and some of my results were very interesting," said Murakami, adding it took roughly 40 minutes. "I'm using this information to make some healthy lifestyle changes."
She will soon head to the BC Cancer Agency to have blood and urine samples taken.
"I feel that by being part of this project, I'm working for a bigger purpose," Murakami said. "A study this large in scale will benefit so many people in the future.
"Had there been a test like this before, maybe it could have helped prevent my sister's cancer."
Meanwhile, Borugian added that they are seeking more men for the study.
"So far, we have signed up nearly 17,000 people and we have a really good cross section of ages, but we don't have as many men as we hoped for," said Borugian.
"Participants also agree to allow us to link to the BC Cancer Agency in the future so we can track if they are alive or have cancer.
"We hope to test bio makers from healthy, normal people and compare that with others who are ill - this is an extremely important project."
For more information or to enroll in the study, visit www.bcgenerationsproject.ca, or call 604-675-8221 or toll free at 1-877-675-8221.
You can download the questionnaire right off the website.
