The objectives are: 1) To provide diagnostic support essential to maintain valuable laboratory animal colonies. 2) To investigate animal health problems which may provide biomedical models or complicate animal use in research. 3) To provide education for veterinary scientists.
The specific aims are to: 1) Provide clinical pathology, necropsy, and histology services to the Animal resources Program. 2) Provide storage and retrieval of data, tissues, histologic slides and photographic records. 3) Conduct subprojects on circulating immune complexes (CICs) in monkeys, and thrombasthenia in a monkey. 4) Exploit diagnostic and investigative opportunities in nonhuman primate and pigeon pathology and management, and metabolic bone disease in laboratory animals. 5) Provide educational resources for a veterinary postdoctoral training program and students from other institutions. Standard necropsy procedures, plastic embedment and sectioning of hard and soft tissues, and standard histologic methods wi11 be used. A new clinical chemistry analyzer will improve capabilities in clinical pathology. Immunofluorescent and serologic techniques for diagnostic virology will supplement bacteriology procedures in diagnostic microbiology. Microcomputers will perform direct data acquisition from instrumentation, automate reporting, and format data for transfer to a VAX minicomputer database. The prevalence of antibodies to SAIDS retroviruses in the primate colony will be determined by immune fluorescent assay, and blood and lymph node from seropositive animals examined for viral antigens by immunochemistry and flow cytometry. Eradication of endemic pigeon herpesvirus infection by vaccination of parents and early separation of squabs will be attempted. The natural history of CICs in monkeys from capture to the laboratory will be followed, and associations between CICs and disease sought. Thrombasthenia in an African green monkey and its relatives will be clinically and biochemically characterized.
