Pfizer Animal Health just donated $1.1 million to Morris Animal Foundaton to establish a national canine tumor biospecimen bank.
MAF and the AKC Canine Health Foundation provided the initial funding ($500,000) to launch this national biospecimen bank and will be collaborating to secure the remaining funds. The estimated total cost to populate the tissue bank is $2.2 million. The estimated time to populate the tissue bank is three years. Once completed, the tissue bank will contain some 3,000 samples including: 600 osteosarcoma, 600 lymphoma, 600 melanoma, with the remaining 1,200 drawn from other cancers. These high-quality samples will be used by veterinary and medical scientists worldwide in their quest to develop new treatments for cancer.
Those of us who have lost dogs to cancer, as both Gina and I have, have a special interest in canine cancer research. I spoke to Morris' Michael Burke, who told me that MAF will be launching a major new program dealing with cancer in April.
That's a photo (taken by Gina) of my dog, Raven, who I lost to osteosarcoma in September, 2005.
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