Polio vaccine. Surgical treatment of macular degeneration. The potential of paraplegic patients to walk again. Treat Parkinson’s disease. Antiviral drugs used to treat or prevent HIV. COVID-19 vaccine.
Each of these life-saving medical advances is rooted in research involving non-human primates, usually monkeys. Yet scientists doing this important work face harassment and threats. Our insistence that primate research be restricted or even banned would have dire scientific consequences. These are few, but loud, and the potential cost of listening to them is high.
Non-human primates are critical to our efforts to understand the long-term effects of Covid-19. Estimates suggest that 10-30% of people may experience prolonged Covid after initial recovery. The National Institutes of Health must fund research aimed at explaining the long-term effects of Covid on the nervous system, which needs to include projects using non-human primate models.
In the dire early days of the pandemic, infectious disease experts Turning to Primate Research Learn how the disease strikes the body, then develop a Covid-19 vaccine.Research published as early as May 2020 Showing primates can develop immunity Against Covid-19, identifying a vaccine in record time can be an effective tool for controlling the spread of SARS-CoV2.More than a dozen vaccine candidates were tested in monkeys to determine their safety and efficacy, and crucially, scientists Drawing on previous research This suggests that mRNA vaccines provide primates Zika virus protection Virus. Past experience has laid the groundwork for the development of a Covid-19 mRNA vaccine, the fastest vaccine ever made.
Going forward, primate studies will help us understand whether certain groups, such as the elderly, are more susceptible to long-term COVID-19.Early research by my team and others has shown that the virus can spread through a person’s nose to the brain and may cause long-lasting neurological problems, Such as patient-reported brain fog, loss or distortion of smell, anxiety, depression, difficulty concentrating, and headache. Even more worrying is the risk that the pandemic will lead to a surge in Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s cases. Robust Covid-19 monkey models are needed to disentangle this potential link.
We’re only just beginning to understand long-term Covid, and we need to use all our tools — including increased federal funding — to work hard to unravel its mysteries. Additional federal funding for non-human primate research will help expedite this critical research, giving us much-needed answers about long-term Covid sooner.
My colleagues and I are committed to conducting our research in an ethical and humane manner. In the four decades I’ve been researching primates, our protocols have evolved to improve monkey well-being. They live in social housing conditions, except in rare cases where scientific protocols require segregation. We take care to respect and maintain the natural hierarchy of the colony. We provide them with dietary supplements as well as dental and eye care and work to reduce their stress levels. In addition, prior to any research on non-human primates, approval must be obtained from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, a committee of veterinarians, scientists, and community lay members.
What hasn’t changed since I started doing primate research? The similarities between monkeys and humans continue to make them important partners in our quest for new discoveries directly related to human health. More than 100,000 people with Parkinson’s disease have benefited from deep brain stimulation, a therapy developed through research in monkeys. In addition, the researchers even implanted electrodes in the brains and spines of paralyzed monkeys, Let them walk again. This research has already been applied to humans, potentially allowing paraplegics to walk. What was once considered impossible may become standard medical procedure.
To achieve this bright future, we need to recruit the best young scientists into the field without fear of being vilified for doing important research. We need the support of lawmakers who rightly herald medical advances that save lives every day.
Anything else risks missing out on life-saving advances that could benefit millions of people around the world.
Photo: BeritK, Getty Images
