Golden Retriever Foundation and Morris Animal Foundation team up for cancer research

Denver/Overland Park, Kan.

-- The Golden Retriever Foundation and Morris Animal Foundation have teamed up to fund a new major cancer study. Titled "Discovery and characterization of heritable and somatic cancer mutations in Golden Retrievers," the three-year, $1 million project will get started this summer.

The project is part of Morris Animal Foundation's Canine Cancer Campaign, a worldwide effort to prevent, treat and ultimately cure the disease in dogs. The study will be led by researchers from the University of Minnesota, North Carolina State University, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Uppsala University in Sweden.

Researchers will investigate mutations involved in the two most common cancers affecting Golden Retrievers: hemangiosarcoma and lymphoma. According to the Morris Animal Foundation, the study could benefit humans too, since genes involved in cancer are sometimes the same in both species.