The overall goals of this project are the development and application of methods for rational demographic and genetic management of captive primate breeding colonies. We will continue our efforts to develop software aimed at solving problems that arise in colony management. We also have begun a major effort to develop standards that aid in transfer of data between colonies and database systems. The success of this work leads us to the task of defining standards for analytic procedures that will assure comparability of analyses done in different colonies. To aid in implementation of these standards, we will generate and distribute test data sets for validation of analysis programs, and will develop model schedules of mortality and fertility based on data from many colonies. A persistent problem we will address is the selection of a least-related set of animals (for breeding or experimental controls). Another is the need for a procedure that will divide complex pedigrees into analytically tractable sub-units. As the result of suggestions from numerous users, we will make improvements to our pedigree drawing package, and we will develop a pattern matching algorithm for analysis of DNA fingerprinting patterns. We will apply existing software in an experiment to evaluate the genetic effects of a harvest schedule that maximizes colony productivity of marmosets and other primate species, and we will continue to manage and analyze phenotypic data from the Genetic Marker Typing Laboratory at Trinity University at San Antonio. An important part of our continuing efforts to distribute and maintain software developed on this grant will be to produce and test user manuals for these programs. Our accomplishments to date have depended heavily on the willing cooperation of collaborators. In the work proposed, we will continue to use data provided by these investigators and to share with them our programs and our computing expertise.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Center for Research Resources (NCRR)
Type
Resource-Related Research Projects (R24)
Project #
2R24RR002229-06
Application #
3450610
Study Section
Animal Resources Advisory Committee (AR)
Project Start
1984-08-15
Project End
1994-08-31
Budget Start
1989-09-01
Budget End
1990-08-31
Support Year
6
Fiscal Year
1989
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
San Antonio
State
TX
Country
United States
Zip Code
78245