This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. A constant barrier to the development of safe and effective human medicines is the limited application of information derived from non-primate mammalian test species to human beings. Several species of non-human primates represent valuable pre-clinical test species as a result of physiological and, more importantly, pathophysiological similarities to human beings. Despite these obvious benefits largely unknown differences in the genetic make-up of out-bred non-human primate test subjects of the same species often prevent an unambiguous understanding of the disease process under investigation and, its susceptibility to therapeutic intervention. Although studying out-bred populations more clearly reflects the human situation in large clinical efficacy trials, unknown genetic differences ensure that studies on small numbers of macaques are difficult to interpret. As a result, large numbers of test animals are needed to gain pathophysiological and therapeutic information. Therefore production of genetically identical individuals (twins) of clinically relevant non-human primate species would be expected to significantly enhance translational research in fields of biomedicine where a limitation in genetic variation is critical to an understanding of the disease process and its therapeutic sensitivity (e.g. gene therapy, tissue transplantation, vaccine development and developmental and behavioral disease/modeling). In addition, reduced numbers of identical animals will be required for a given project due to known genetic similarities in identical animal pairs, thus reducing the numbers of wild-caught out-bred macaques required each year for biomedical research.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 320 publications
