The Wake Forest University School of Medicine (WFUSM) is an international leader in the use of non-human primates to study human disease. For four decades we have utilize non-human primate models to study the biological basis of diverse disease states, including atherosclerosis, oestopathology, substance abuse, aging, and peripheral nerve injury. Over the past five years, the WFUSM has adapted the functional imaging technique Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to study the neurobiological correlates of behavior in non-human primates. This program incorporates cross-departmental efforts of faculty in the Departments of Radiology, Physiology & Pharmacology, Comparative Medicine, Anesthesiology and Neurobiology & Anatomy. The incorporation of PET imaging into behavioral studies of primate models of chronic disease is unique. The rapid growth of this Program reflects the uniqueness of this approach and the importance of this research to the NIH mission. However, this growth also has limited our ability to support other NIH-funded scientific programs, and has resulted in an increased transportation of non-human primates across the three separate campuses of the WFUSM. The goals of the Extramural Research Facilities Construction Project are to 1) consolidate the research programs of investigators using PET in behavioral research programs employing non-human primate models of human disease; 2) provide a mechanism that will facilitate the innovate use of PET by other investigators at the WFUSM, 3) allow the growth of other non-human primate studies utilizing different neurobiological correlates of behavior, and 4) insure the scientific integrity of PET studies by limiting intercampus transportation of monkeys to the PET Center.
