The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) has established a baboon research resource with the essential support of this P40 grant, two C06 construction grants and a R24 Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) grants that provide baboons for research investigators throughout the United States. Our mission is to provide immediate availability of high quality, behaviorally healthy baboons and to serve as a national resource for biomedical and behavioral research requiring baboons. The baboon colony has grown from 141 baboons at the outset of the P40 grant support to a colony of 506 baboons. Over the past five years we supplied 452 baboons to outside research investigators located at 27 institutions across the United States and 111 infant baboons were supplied to the OUHSC SPF program. Together with the Oklahoma State University Center for Veterinary Health Sciences and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, we have produced 40 peer reviewed publications during the last five years. The publications are the result of the P40 support of resource based research. The published articles add to the knowledge and increase the utility of baboons as models for biomedical research. These combined efforts have resulted in an increase in the number of baboons available for and provided to research investigators along with increasing their attractiveness for several areas of investigation of biomedical research. We continue to experience an increase in research requests involving primates not only locally but nationwide. During the next funding period we propose to continue the development and expansion of the baboon breeding and research programs in order to increase our ability to meet the increased demand for baboons and to encourage the attractiveness of non-human primates as a research model. To meet this goal we will 1) continue to support the increasing demand for NIH funded biomedical and behavioral research programs that require baboons at the local, regional, and national level;2) continue to support development of the OUHSC SPF colony;3) more aggressively optimize cost recovery to work towards self-sufficiency;4) hire a full-time PhD level behaviorist to work with the colony;and 5) support resource based research to improve emphasis on development of the baboon as a model.
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