Vervet Research Colony as a Biomedical Resource
Grant Number: P40OD010965
Research Emphasis/Objectives
The Vervet Research Colony (VRC) is the only NIH-funded breeding colony of vervets (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus or Chlorocebus sabaeus), which also are known as African green monkeys or AGMs. As a national biomedical research resource, the VRC is mandated to provide the research community with access to U.S.-born, known-age, well-characterized Caribbean-origin vervets. The VRC supports a wide variety of critical translational research by providing investigators access to animals, as well as extensive biological sample and data repositories. The VRC also provides expertise and consultation on the use of vervets for biomedical studies and serves as a platform for training veterinarians and other research personnel on vervet husbandry, sample collection techniques, clinical care, and behavioral management. All animals are mother-reared in species-typical social groups, ensuring normative physiological and psychosocial development.
Current Research
The VRC has facilitated significant translational research across multiple disciplines, including aging and Alzheimer’s disease; infectious diseases and vaccine development; diabetes, metabolic disease, and obesity; neuroscience and noninvasive biomedical imaging; genetics and genomics; neonatal anesthesia; and the impact of advanced maternal age on the cardiovascular system.
Services Provided
The aims of the VRC resource are to (1) provide the scientific community with access to animals, biological samples, data, and expertise to facilitate the use of vervets for multidisciplinary biomedical research; (2) provide hands-on training opportunities for veterinarians and researchers interested in using vervets for translational research and serve as a platform for community and scientific outreach to foster better understanding of the use of vervets in translational research; and (3) further enhance the resource by conducting applied research focused on expanding the phenotypic and genotypic characterization of colony animals and the evaluation of the vervet as a potential translational model for biomedical research. The VRC aims to provide outstanding resources and services to enable local, regional, and national researchers to utilize the VRC for multicategorical research, including onsite studies. The VRC is a Research Core within the Wake Forest University School of Medicine (WFUSM) and has worked closely with the Wake Forest Clinical and Translational Science Institute to facilitate the utilization of the VRC resource across the larger Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program at NIH. The VRC can take full advantage of a wide range of existing research facilities, including multimodal imaging capabilities within the Translational Imaging Program, veterinary and pathology expertise within the Section on Comparative Medicine and its Animal Resources Program, and the genetic and analytic expertise within the Center for Precision Medicine. The VRC also works with multiple research centers within WFUSM to support and expand the use of VRC resources across different research areas.
Contact Information
Vervet Research Colony
Department of Pathology, Section on Comparative Medicine
Wake Forest School of Medicine
Medical Center Blvd.
Winston-Salem, NC 27157
Email: [email protected]
Principal Investigator
Matthew J. Jorgensen, Ph.D.
Phone: 336-716-6935
Email: [email protected]