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This month, leadership from all seven National Primate Research Centers (NPRCs) and the Caribbean Primate Research Center convened in Washington, D.C. In addition to their internal meetings, leaders from each center engaged with congressional office staff to underscore the importance of their efforts to their local representatives.

Donations to CNPRC Excellence Fund will help us reach our goal to become the nation's leading nonhuman primate research center dedicated to women's health.

California National Primate Center (CNPRC) announced Professor Karen Bales as interim director, marking the first time a woman has held this position in the center’s history.

Lower urinary tract (LUT) dysfunction is prevalent in older adults. Clinical manifestations include urinary retention, incontinence and recurrent urinary tract infections. Bladder catheters and increased risk for infections requiring outpatient antibiotic treatment or hospitalization frequently result. This is often followed by the loss of independence and the need for long-term care in skilled nursing facilities or at home.

California National Primate Research Center is pleased to announce the 2023-2024 CNPRC Pilot Research Program recipients. Every year the CNPRC awards pilot research grants focusing on nonhuman primate (NHP) models of human disease. This award aims to explore innovative areas of NHP research and generate preliminary data to serve as a basis for submitting new research grant applications (e.g., R01-type applications to the National Institute of Health) and/or subsequent clinical studies.

In the spring of 2020, SARS-CoV-2 swept across the world, and scientists everywhere immediately jumped into action. Questions from how the virus spread, to what the infection does to the human body, to who is most at risk needed to be answered. Assistant Professor at Duke Human Vaccine Institute, Maria Blasi, wanted to learn more about the age-dependent responses of SARS-CoV-2. Specifically, she was interested in why infants and young children had lower hospitalization and fatality rates than older populations.

Autosomal dominant optic atrophy (ADOA) is a rare genetic disease that causes progressive and irreversible vision loss in both eyes starting in the first decade of life. There is currently no treatment for ADOA, which affects approximately 3 people per 100,000 worldwide. 

UC Davis researchers will use a new 3.5 million grant from the National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, to develop a nonhuman primate model of ADOA to speed the development and testing of treatments for humans. 

Early life wildfire smoke exposure led to long-term changes in genes impacting nervous and immune systems in rhesus macaques, according to research from the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) at the University of California, Davis. The work was published in Environment International Nov. 4, 2021, and builds upon a series of studies conducted by the CNPRC. 

Monoclonal antibodies protected aged, diabetic rhesus macaque monkeys from disease due to SARS-CoV-2 and reduced signs of inflammation, including in cerebrospinal fluid, according to a new study from researchers at the University of California, Davis. The work is published Oct. 18 in the journal Cell Reports. 

Subclinical, persistent viral infections, including those caused by cytomegalovirus (CMV), are highly prevalent in humans. Rocha et al. (e00167-18) found that subclinical CMV infection of rhesus macaques is associated with significantly altered gut microbiota and increased host immune cell numbers and activation. These alterations occur predominantly in an outdoor environment but not in a controlled, indoor environment. In the indoor environment, CMV-infected animals display decreased antibody responses to influenza vaccine compared to those of animals without CMV.