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QUINCY, ILL. -- This weekend you have the chance to change the course of cancer research.

The American Cancer Society is getting ready to begin its third nationwide Cancer Prevention Study. It's a giant research project geared towards tracking what causes cancer in healthy adults.

That's why the cancer society is asking for a half million people nationwide to volunteer to be a part of it. 225 of them will be recruited this weekend at the Adams County Relay for Life at Quincy's Flinn Stadium.

The cancer society will follow those volunteers for the next 20 years with regular mail-in surveys on participants' lifestyles, diets, environment and genetics to track cancer rates among participants.

Organizers say after years of raising money to fight cancer...this is a way to be on the front lines of preventing the disease in the first place.

Dale Stevenson, local Cancer Prevention Study 3 Chairperson said, "So many of us have loved ones who have experienced cancer and we've watched them suffer and this is a unique opportunity for us to be involved in the research that can prevent cancer."

If you would like to volunteer for the study, you need to register on Friday evening at the Relay for Life between 4:30 and 8:30 in the evening.  A confidential blood test and initial survey will be done at that time.

Volunteers can be either men or women between the ages of 30 and 65 and never have been diagnosed with cancer.

By the way, the first Cancer Prevention Study was responsible for discovering the link between lung cancer and smoking.