Abstract

The Morris Animal Foundation has been funding animal health studies for 70 years. Annual requests for proposals are released for canine, feline, large animal (equine, llama, alpaca) and wildlife-focused research. This funding is international and includes fellowships, awards for early career researchers, and pilot grants. There are also ‘off-cycle’ opportunities for special donor-funded topics, this year including the Australian Wildlife Fund established in response to the recent wildfire events and the Mark L. Morris Jr. Investigator Award. The latter award for the current call is focused on the topic of feline behavior. An overview will be given of the grant review and funding process and features of successful applications including impact plans that match the mission of the Foundation. Additionally, the Foundation has been running the Golden Retriever Lifetime Study since 2012, with 3,044 pedigree dogs initially enrolled. This is a prospective longitudinal cohort study whose primary focus is to determine risk factors associated with development of common cancer types. In the US, cancer-related mortality in this breed is approximately 60%. Each year owners and veterinarians fill out detailed annual questionnaires; clinical pathology tests are performed and a set of biological samples is submitted to a central biorepository. This has created a unique resource of data and samples linked to extensive phenotypic information. An overview will be given of the current state of the study, plans for further expansion of the dataset, and opportunities for academic researchers to access these data and samples.