Category: News

The Washington National Biomedical Research Center signed onto the following position statement to Jay Bhattacharya, Director of the National Institutes of Health and concurrently serving as Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) regarding the CDC’s announced plan to transfer 160 of its monkeys to a Texas sanctuary:

Acting Director
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Road
Atlanta, GA 30329

Dear Dr. Bhattacharya,

We, the undersigned scientists and experts in the care, behavioral management, veterinary oversight, and social housing of non-human primates (NHPs) maintained in biomedical research and large breeding colony settings, write to express our serious concerns regarding the CDC’s plan to retire approximately 160 rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) and pigtailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina) to the Born Free USA Primate Sanctuary in Texas. According to the CDC’s sole source justification posted on SAM.gov, the agency intends for the macaques to be transferred to Born Free in phased cohorts of around 25 animals, with the sanctuary ultimately combining male and female rhesus macaques into one social group and female pigtailed macaques into another. These plans are inconsistent with best practices for the introduction of adult macaques into a large social group setting, particularly animals with histories of single or pair housing. The behavioral and social risks associated with such a rapid, large-scale introduction are profound and predictable.

Rhesus and pigtailed macaques are highly social, but intensely hierarchical primate species. The successful formation of large social groups requires gradual, carefully managed introductions that begin with small compatible cohorts and slowly expand over time. Experts consistently recommend preserving established compatible pairs, forming small groups of four to ten animals, utilizing protected-contact systems, and allowing stable dominance relationships to emerge before attempting larger integrations.

Attempting to combine dozens of unfamiliar adult macaques, especially adult rhesus males that have spent most of their lifetime to date singly or pair housed, into massive social groups is widely recognized as extremely high risk. Such introductions will rapidly escalate into severe fighting, coalition aggression, chronic terrorization of subordinate animals, traumatic injury, social fragmentation, and fatalities.

Successful introductions of macaques retired from research environments require highly complex facilities with ample vertical space, visual barriers, multiple feeding and watering stations, retreat areas, protected-contact systems, separation capability, and intensive behavioral monitoring. These transitions also require experienced veterinary and behavioral management teams capable of evaluating affiliative behavior, monitoring social stability, identifying vulnerable animals, intervening during escalating aggression, and implementing contingency separation plans. Introductions should be overseen by personnel specifically trained and experienced in macaque social dynamics and research-to-sanctuary transitions.

We submit that Born Free lacks the staffing and expertise necessary to safely execute a transition of this magnitude and complexity. Based on publicly available information, Born Free has only one veterinarian, who does not possess professional training in NHP care or colony management, and no dedicated behavioral management personnel. The sanctuary also appears understaffed to provide the level of husbandry, observation, behavioral assessment, injury monitoring, and rapid intervention required for the safe social integration of more than 160 macaques with complex social and medical histories. Inadequate staffing during introductions of this scale will inevitably delay detection of escalating aggression, social exclusion, injuries, and chronic stress. It is also unlikely that the complex infrastructure required to introduce and protect the macaques, while transitioning them safely to successively larger group integrations, can be built in the twelve-week timeline referenced in the sole source justification.

The CDC’s reliance on Born Free’s GFAS accreditation provides little meaningful reassurance regarding the welfare oversight of these animals. Unlike the oversight system currently governing the monkeys at CDC facilities, GFAS inspection reports are confidential and unavailable for public review. Once transferred to Born Free, the welfare, health outcomes, injury rates, and deaths of these monkeys will effectively become invisible to the public and the broader professional community. By contrast, the monkeys currently housed by the CDC are subject to federal oversight in accordance with their formal Assurance with the NIH Office of Laboratory Animal (NIH-OLAW). All reports and communications with NIH-OLAW are publicly accessible and provide transparency and accountability regarding animal welfare standards and compliance.

We also question the validity and accuracy of the CDC’s sole source justification for selecting Born Free as the only qualified retirement option. The justification states that Born Free was the “only identified GFAS-accredited source” capable of meeting the agency’s requirements for species expertise, capacity, and schedule. However, we understand that no formal Request for Proposal (RFP) was issued by the CDC and that at least two USDA-regulated organizations (that exceed GFAS standards) expressed interest in retiring the monkeys in response to informal CDC inquiries. We further understand that one of these organizations can accept all CDC macaques in less than twelve weeks. Neither organization was formally reviewed or visited prior to the release of the sole source determination. These facts call into question the completeness, honesty, and scientific rigor of the market research and comparative analyses described in the CDC’s justification document.

The welfare of these macaques must be the overriding priority in any retirement decision. Alternative retirement options involving organizations with the demonstrated expertise, infrastructure, veterinary resources, behavioral management programs, and staffing necessary to safely care for large populations of rhesus and pigtailed macaques in a sanctuary setting must be fully reviewed and objectively evaluated before these animals are transferred anywhere. If the CDC nevertheless insists on transferring these animals to Born Free, then we recommend that the CDC establish an independent advisory panel responsible for guiding and overseeing the veterinary, behavioral, and social management of the CDC macaques throughout the transition and long-term care process. This advisory panel must include experts in NHP behavior, veterinary medicine, social management, and research-animal retirement from the biomedical research community, as well as professionals experienced in sanctuary-based primate care. We welcome an opportunity to collaborate with the decision makers at the CDC to establish such a panel in the interest of ensuring that animals retired from research at the CDC are provided the lifetime care they so richly deserve.

We, the undersigned, respectfully request a retirement plan for the CDC macaques that is transparent and prioritizes their welfare, safety, behavioral stability, and long-term quality of life.

Sincerely,

3Rs Collaborative

American Association for Laboratory Animal Science

American College of Neuropsychopharmacology

Americans for Medical Progress

American Psychological Association

American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics

Associated Medical Schools of New York

Association of Primate Veterinarians

California National Primate Research Center

College on Problems of Drug Dependence

Emory National Primate Research Center

National Animal Interest Alliance

New England Society for Biomedical Research

New Jersey Association for Biomedical Research

North Carolina Association for Biomedical Research

Northwest Association for Biomedical Research

Peaceable Primate Sanctuary

Pennsylvania Society for Biomedical Research

Southwest National Primate Research Center

State United for Biomedical Research

Tulane National Biomedical Research Center

Washington National Biomedical Research Center

Wisconsin National Primate Research Center

CDC Position Statement 5 27 26

Science fiction is becoming reality at the Washington Biomedical Research Center. We’re at the forefront of innovating New Approach Methodologies, or NAMs. Two examples of these advanced tools include artificial neural networks and three-dimensional printed organs which test medical treatments before they reach a living body.  But as powerful as they are, these models can’t advance cures alone. Nonhuman primates are still essential for proving whether a treatment actually works. 

Think of these new technologies like a computer crash simulation for building a new car.  Simulations can predict many outcomes quickly and more efficiently than crashing a bunch of cars. But manufacturers still validate the predictions before putting cars on the road 

In the lab of Dr. Megan O’Connor, an investigator focused on viral infections, that simulation takes the form of a three-dimensional printed artificial airway linked to complex computer programming. Her collaborative team uses it to track exactly how respiratory drugs travel through the lungs, testing different flow rates and medicine formulations to ensure therapies reach deep into the respiratory system. 

Across campus, neuroscience researcher Dr. Amy Orsborn uses a different kind of simulator: artificial neural networks. She is designing brain-computer interfaces, which are smart software systems that can intercept brain signals and reroute them around a spinal injury to help paralyzed patients move things like a robotic arm. A future use of these algorithms might be creating some prosthetic or tool that helps a paralyzed person learn to walk again.  By testing her math algorithms in these virtual networks first, she bypasses repetitive trial-and-error, drastically reducing the number of animals required for her research. 

But software has its limits. As O’Connor points out, “A computer model is simply not going to tell us whether or not an animal is going to have a cough reflex, or what the mucus production is actually going to look like, or how a microbe is going to spread from the upper respiratory tract to the lower respiratory tract.” To make sure her airway models are accurate, she has to validate them using real-world anatomical data and breathing measurements from nonhuman primates.  

Orsborn hits the same wall with artificial intelligence. “Every neural network is only as good as the data it is trained on, and if you train it on bad data, it’s going to make bad predictions,” she said.  Because monkeys have complex motor systems and precise hand control uniquely similar to humans, they provide the essential data that computational models require to succeed, data you cannot get from a mouse or a screen. 

If primate research were to stop tomorrow, the risks to human and animal health would be severe. NAMs can’t replicate the complex feedback loops of a living body or a complete immune system. Moving a new therapy or a brain implant straight from a computer simulation into human clinical trials would create huge risks, leaving doctors completely blind to dangerous, unpredictable side effects. 

What’s more, the losses to medicine would be devastating. Life-changing therapies for paralysis and neurological disorders could be delayed for decades. Orsborn warns that without the real-world data gained from primate studies, medical advancement stalls out completely: “If we don’t do this work, then we don’t learn how the brain works, and we don’t build devices that can help people.” 

Furthermore, vulnerable populations would be left behind. O’Connor’s research specifically focuses on tailoring respiratory treatments for high-risk, underrepresented groups like infants, the elderly, and the immunocompromised. Without nonhuman primates to validate these models, safely developing specialized treatments for individuals with weakened immune systems just wouldn’t work, or worse, might lead to dangerous outcomes. “We want to be confident in what we’re putting out there. No model is perfect. Even humans are not perfect because there’s so much variation in genetics, age, sex, or the health status of humans,” she said. “That’s why you’re trying to get the best data that you can. NAMs can really help to complement that.” 

The ultimate goal of modern science is to reach a day when animal models are no longer necessary, but that is still many years away. For now, keeping people safe requires a balanced approach that combines the innovative power of NAMs with the irreplaceable predictive strength of living systems. 

For years, scientists studying vision faced a problem: the tools used to track eye movements were either invasive and prone to failure or too imprecise for high-level research. Standard noninvasive methods track the center of the pupil and corneal reflections and compare their positions to estimate the direction of the gaze. But they frequently overestimated how much the eye drifted, making it difficult to tell exactly where a subject was looking.

To solve this, WaNBRC researchers helped develop OpenIrisDPI, a new kind of digital eye tracker that gives researchers a crystal-clear picture of exactly where the eye is focused. Instead of just looking at the pupil, it tracks multiple reflections within the eye, known as Purkinje images, to provide a pinpoint-accurate record of gaze. The tracker is in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods.

It was built by bioengineering graduate student Ryan Ressmeyer, who works in WaNBRC Neuroscience Unit Chief Greg Horwitz’s lab.  When scientists tested this system, they found they could map the “receptive fields” of brain neurons with much greater sharpness than ever before. It essentially removes the “blur” from visual neuroscience, allowing us to see exactly how the brain processes the world.

“We need to revise our models of how vision works,” Horwitz said. For years, scientists have understood that they can show the same image and get a different response, or “noise,” from neurons in the visual system.  “There’s been a lot of study about how noisy neurons are, and how you can try to figure out where that noise comes from and how neurons can do what they do despite noisiness. They answer might be they’re not that noisy at all.”

In the past, this kind of precision required specialized equipment costing upwards of $20,000.  But OpenIris DPI is different because it is open-source and runs on consumer-grade hardware Ressmeyer built for a quarter of that price. By making these high-precision tools affordable and accessible, this technology ensures that more researchers can work on breakthrough treatments for vision and neurological disorders.

“When it comes to research, sometimes you want to have a company build a system for you. But other times I want something bespoke for research I’m doing, and other people have done the work to put it out there for free, and I can build on it and all I need are parts for a fraction of the cost,” Ressmeyer said.

WaNBRC neuroscientists: putting world-class science into the hands of the entire research community.

Get the plans and make one yourself via their GitHub wiki.

Researchers at the Washington National Biomedical Research Center have developed a long-sought technological “toolbox” that allows scientists to control and monitor brain activity with light in non-human primates for years at a time, a breakthrough expected to bridge the gap between basic laboratory research and life-saving human medicine.

The study, published in Nature Communications, introduces a new platform for optogenetics, a technique that involves genetically modifying specific neurons to make them sensitive to light. By shining light on these modified cells, scientists can effectively flip a “switch” to turn neural circuits on or off. While the technology has existed for two decades, its application in monkeys has been notoriously difficult to sustain.

“The challenge with the brain is that it is an extraordinarily complex network composed of billions of neurons.,” said Dr. Azadeh Yazdan, the study’s lead researcher. “If you’re studying the heart, you can hold it in your hand, dissect it, and understand how it works because it is largely a mechanical organ. The brain, in contrast, is fundamentally electrical, composed of billions of neurons communicating through dynamic patterns of activity. This complex exchange of electrical signals is much more difficult to observe and understand.”.

According to Dr. Yazdan, her team’s advancement serves as a vital “unlock” for the global scientific community. “A lot of monkey researchers say we are not doing optogenetics, or we’re scared of doing it because it’s hard,” she noted. ” What we claim in this paper is that, by using the toolbox we have developed, it becomes possible to conduct long-term experiments and study these circuits in a more sustained and systematic manner”.

The platform’s stability is a major milestone.  The lab has successfully maintained functional brain interfaces in monkeys for over four years. This longevity is crucial for studying the progression of chronic conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, and mental health disorders.

Dr. Yazdan’s research involving non-human primates is an important pathway to future therapies.

“Macaques share a lot of anatomy and physiology with us,” she explained. “For example, we have highly dexterous movement, the ability to use our hands and fingers for tasks like turning a key in a lock or using a spoon to feed ourselves. This capability arises from a unique organization of the motor cortex and its connections to the spinal cord, a feature shared only between these animals and humans…”

Because of this biological proximity, the ethical treatment and care of the animals are paramount to the lab’s mission. Dr. Yazdan’s “NERD Lab,” short for Neural Engineering and Rehabilitation Design, gave of the primary monkeys in the study the names, “Hydrogen” and “Lithium,” who have been with the lab for nearly eight years.

“Providing the highest standard of care is essential, as these animals play a critical role in advancing our understanding of the brain,” Yazdan said. “We are committed to maximizing the knowledge gained from each study while minimizing the number of animals involved. We also actively advocate for approaches that allow us to continue working with the same animals over time, when appropriate, to reduce the need for additional subjects. Maintaining that continuity is important to both the science and the welfare of the animals.” By demonstrating the long-term safety of the technology, her team was able to work with scientific reviewers to show that continued monitoring, rather than euthanasia (which is sometimes required in such studies) was appropriate in this case. The combination of long-term stability and accessibility of this toolbox to the scientific community also has the potential to reduce the number of animals required in future studies.

This paper is part of a larger cluster of technological advancements from Dr. Yazdan’s team. She alluded to two other significant studies that the lab has been developing for multimodal interfacing with the brain featuring the “Smart Dura” which was developed in collaboration with the lab of Maysam Chamanzar at Carnegie Mellon University. Smart Dura is an advanced interface that enables researchers to image the brain’s surface physiology and anatomy while simultaneously recording electrical activity through micron-scale, semi-transparent electrodes. It also allows for targeted stimulation of underlying neural circuits using both optical and electrical stimulation. This technology was featured in a paper published earlier this year in Microsystems & Nanoengineering and its versatility was demonstrated in a second paper published in Advanced Science.

The ultimate goal of this integrated technology is to move toward practical therapies. Dr. Yazdan noted that her lab is already seeing promise in using stimulation to accelerate recovery from stroke and to help clear the pathologies associated with Alzheimer’s disease. By making this platform accessible to other labs, the team hopes to accelerate the journey toward a future where the most complex diseases of the human brain finally have a cure.

The 7th Annual Field Course in Conservation Biology and Global Health wraps up this week at the Nepal Engineering College in Lalitpur.

This year’s program marks a significant milestone as it is the first field course for Dr. Matthew Novak in his new role as Unit Director for Global Programs at the Washington National Biomedical Research Center (WaNBRC).

The event highlights a seamless transition in leadership, as Dr. Novak is joined in Nepal by the outgoing Unit Chief, Dr. Randall Kyes, who is retiring after more than 35 years of global service.

This collaboration is the continuation of a partnership that began decades ago.  In the 1990s Dr. Novak was one of the first two American students to participate in Dr. Kyes’ inaugural field study program on Tinjil Island.

Having come full circle from student to leader, Dr. Novak noted that he is “humbled and honored” to continue the legacy of building long-term international relationships.

The five-day course, titled “At the Human-Environment Interface,” was formally inaugurated with a traditional panas lighting ceremony, where a decorative brass oil lamp is lit to mark the inauguration of events, symbolizing the spread of knowledge and positivity.

Special guests included Bed Kumar Dhakal, Deputy Director General of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, and Robert Dongol, Director of the Center for Professional Studies at Nepal Engineering College.

The program kicked off with Bed Kumar Dhakal, Deputy Director General of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation. The opening session was chaired by Robert Dongol, Director of the Center for Professional Studies at Nepal Engineering College.  The event was coordinated and hosted by Dr. Narayan Prasad Koju, Program Coordinator of the MSc Natural Resources Management program at Nepal Engineering College. “He was essential to our success,” said Dr. Novak.

The program brings together 20 participants from seven different Nepali institutions. Jointly conducted by Nepal Engineering College and the University of Washington through the Center for Global Field Study (CGFS) and WaNBRC, the course provides practical experience in wildlife research methods and examines the critical links between environmental and human health.