Nonhuman Primates

Nonhuman primates are among the most expensive, complex, and demanding of species used in biomedical research. Their high cost, scarcity, and high level of sentience demand a specialized infrastructure and level of care that differs from other species used in research. Veterinary care must be balanced between colony management (colony health) and individualized care in such a way that individual animals are treated as patients within the animal care program. With the growing emphasis on translational science, nonhuman primates are often considered the ultimate translational research model due to their close phylogenetic relationship to human primates. Considering the high cost to carry out research using nonhuman primates, research must be vigorously justified based on the probability that the primate model will most closely recapitulate what would be observed in human beings. Their susceptibility to human infectious agents, similarities in physiological responses, developmental biology, and response to experimentally induced diseases are critically important to the advancement of biomedicine. Nonhuman primates are also among the most scarce, costly, and sentient of animal models used in research. During the past 40 years, there has been a significant increase in our knowledge of the biology and care of these valuable animals. This chapter is intended to provide veterinarians, colony managers, and research scientists with an overview of the natural history, biology, clinical management, husbandry, and diseases of the eight most commonly used primate genera.