US plans on increasing primate reasearch

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Hmmm. More animal "model" failures= more demand for animal "model" research. Real intelligent. ttp://www.nature. com/news/ 2008/080521/ full/453439a. htmlScientists in the United States are planning for an increase ofnon-human primate research.Currently, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funds eightNational Primate Research Centers with a total of about 26,000animals. But several factors are expected to drive demand, among themthe failure last year of an HIV vaccine candidate being trialled bythe pharmaceutical company Merck. Such failures have underscored theneed for more non-human primate research to answer basic questionsabout the virus and to develop new vaccine concepts."We fully anticipate that the animal model will have a resurgence ofinterest and importance because we need it

to answer some of thosefundamental questions," says Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH'sNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda,Maryland.A greater focus on clinical research is also expected to boost primatework. For instance, on 18 May, researchers from the Yerkes NationalPrimate Center in Atlanta, Georgia, announced that they had madesignificant progress towards a transgenic model of Huntington'sdisease in rhesus macaques engineered to carry the genetic defectresponsible for the disease (see S.-H. Yang et al. Nature doi:10.1038/nature06975 ; 2008).Five of the eight national primate centres are also located nearinstitutions that have received grants specifically to bolsterclinical and translational science. "We want to go from basic researchforward into preclinical and clinical models, and animal models are avery important part of that type of development, " says Barbara

Alving,director of the National Center for Research Resources in Bethesda.But meeting the demand is a complicated issue. India, the preferredcountry of origin for the animals, has a long-standing ban onexporting rhesus macaques. Breeding more will take years, and it isnot yet clear how many additional animals will be needed, becausescientists have not yet told the NIH exactly what research must bedone. With agency budgets staying flat in recent years, the primatecentres have already formed a consortium to pool resources and makesure they breed enough animals to meet the needs of NIH-fundedscientists.Fauci says the NIH will be consulting with HIV researchers andscientists over the coming year to solidify its plans. This month, hisinstitute solicited comment on the 'highly innovative strategies toprevent HIV transmission' , or 'HIT-IT' initiative, a programme that islikely to lead to more non-human primate

work.-- The vivisection community is readinghttp://primateresea rch.blogspot. com/. You should be too. http://pets.Fortheanimals7/join http://www.myspace.com/fortheanimals7