In an article published today in Nature Communications, a team of scientists from the Tulane National Primate Research Center (TNPRC) reported the first...

A recent study by a team of researchers at the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) and Texas Biomedical Research Institute, in collaboration with Washington University in St. Louis, highlights ORIP’s commitment to supporting high-impact animal research to better understand the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

In recent years, scientists have grown increasingly aware of the importance of conducting research that is both rigorous and reproducible. The need for increased rigor (robustness and lack of bias) and reproducibility (the ability to be repeated biologically, analytically, systemically, or conceptually) affects all areas of science, but approaches for ensuring scientific rigor differ among scientific disciplines.

In 2015 and 2016, the Zika virus outbreak in South America surprised the global community. In pregnant women, the virus led to a high rate of fetal abnormalities, collectively called congenital Zika syndrome. Babies suffered from such birth defects as microcephaly, which is characterized by a small head and an incompletely developed brain. Although the peak of the outbreak has passed, the risk of another outbreak remains because transmission occurs primarily via infected mosquitos.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affects more than 5.5 million Americans per year. The earliest symptoms of AD, however, often occur after decades of undetectable damage to the intricate synaptic connections within the brain. Many mechanisms of the disease’s progression remain a mystery for researchers, and effective therapeutics for AD have not been developed yet.

Newborns can be exposed to HIV—the virus that causes AIDS—during gestation, birth, or breastfeeding. In general, babies born to mothers who test positive for HIV are screened and tested. If found positive, the babies will receive the standard of care: antiretroviral therapy (ART) treatment. Because no cure currently exists for HIV, these babies will receive treatments for the rest of their lives to keep the virus suppressed (i.e.,below detectable levels).

Parkinson's disease (PD), the second most common progressive neurodegenerative disorder affecting U.S. adults over the age of 60, is predicted to increase in prevalence as the American population ages.¹ The characteristic motor-related symptoms are rest tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, and stooping posture. Lesser known is the loss of cardiac postganglionic sympathetic innervation, which is a characteristic pathology of PD that progresses over time, is independent of motor symptoms, and is not responsive to typical anti-Parkinsonian therapies. Dr.

ORIP aims to provide investigators with the resources and infrastructure they need to improve human health, including by supporting the development of animal models of human disease. The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in humans, caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) strain, has compelled scientists around the world to work remarkably fast to develop vaccines and therapeutics using animal models.

The National Primate Research Centers (NPRCs)¹ Consortium is a collaboration among  the California (CNPRC), Oregon (ONPRC), Southwest (SNPRC), Tulane (TNPRC), Washington (WaNPRC), Wisconsin (WNPRC), and Emory (ENPRC) National Primate Research Centers. Funded by the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Consortium’s mission is to improve global health through biomedical research with NHPs.

Research with non-human primates (NHPs)^1–4 is significant to our understanding of how the human body responds to diseases, some forms of cancers, organ transplantation, and how the human brain works. Although NHPs are fundamental to science and medicine, access to these animals and their related resources is limited. To alleviate this limitation, collaborative initiatives among research institutions have been established to increase access and promote sharing of invaluable resources among the scientific community.