Research Project
10186892
OVERALL ABSTRACT The Mission of the Southwest National Primate Research Center (SNPRC) is to improve the health of our global community through innovative biomedical research with nonhuman primates (NHPs). One way that it achieves this goal is by serving as a global resource to scientists that can benefit from its expertise and nonhuman primate colonies. Texas Biomedical Research Institute (Texas Biomed), a private nonprofit research organization in San Antonio, TX, has a long history of performing biomedical research using NHPs dating back to the 1950s. Because of its success, Texas Biomed was chosen to host the Southwest National Primate Research Center in 1999. In doing so, SNPRC became the newest of the NIH funded National Primate Research Centers. This application for renewed NIH support of the SNPRC highlights the changes made in response to the reviews from the previous P51 renewal. Specifically, there have been several critical replacements and hires in leadership. In addition, SNPRC has restructured its internal research program into two Scientific Units to align with its expertise and future goals. The new Infectious Disease, Immunology and Control (IDIC) Scientific Unit represents research strengths developed over decades of primate-based research to bring greater emphasis to these areas. It is already taken advantage this Unit's expertise to become a leader in SARS-CoV-2 research. Meanwhile the Comparative Medicine and Health Outcomes (CMHO) Scientific Unit is positioned to be a leader in nonhuman primate research in recently emphasized research fields including metabolic disease, neuroscience, and aging. Both Scientific Units perform research with multiple species of primates including macaques, baboons and marmosets and are integrated into the overarching aims of the SNPRC which include research programs involving NHP models of human disease not available at other NPRCs. The SNPRC will continue to work towards its mission by i) To maintain healthy and well-characterized breeding and research colonies of several NHP (NHP) species for biomedical research, and to make them available to the scientific community; ii) To provide broad services in primate research to the national research community with an emphasis on specialized technologies and capabilities many of which are unique to the SNPRC. We provide these services to enhance collaborative opportunities to both internal and external investigators. Our expertise with diverse species of NHPs allows us to contribute ideas and perspectives about how best to accomplish the goals of research projects, thereby increasing the productivity and efficiency of the research, and strengthening the value of the data derived from it; iii) To maintain and to enhance the physical and administrative infrastructure of the NPRC so that it can best serve biomedical research. SNPRC has undergone significant changes in the Administrative structure in the past year. The benefits of these changes to efficiency and productivity are already apparent; iv) To advance training of staff, students, and visitors in the care and use of NHPs in biomedical research; v) To contribute to advances in science and translational medicine via publication of results obtained from research with NHPs and educational outreach to the public.
