Macaques are the most widespread primates in the world found in countries such as Brazil, Japan and Afghanistan. At the University of Toronto and other universities and research organisations they are use extensively for testing in neuroscience, visual perception, visual systems, immunology and virology.
However, some PhD students at the University of Toronto became upset when they learned that the monkeys that had been studied for seven years at their labs would be euthanized to further analyze their brains. The students wrote a heart felt letter outlining their ethical concerns to university officials but by that time the primates had been euthanized . However, this research project was so important to medicine it won a national award.
In a MetroNews report dated Feb 17-19, 2012, U of T’s Associate vice-president of research Professor Peter Lewis was quoted as saying “They were our very last non-human primates and we have no intention of using any more; technology now lets us get the same information from smaller animals.” Not one month later Professor Lewis wrote an email dated March 8th 2012 to Nature (Science, Health & Medical Journal) reported by TheStar newspaper that “We are not stating that in the future we will never use non-human primates. If a proposed research project at U of T required the use of non-human primates and was scientifically and ethically justified, then we would endeavour to support it,” in an effort to back-peddle from his earlier comments.
The animal care committee at the university reviews research ideas requiring all types of animals including primates with approximately 500 proposals in 2011, according to Harapa, the overseer of all approved submissions.
Macaques In Research
Scientists may have found a way to prevent the transfer of serious inherited mitochondrial diseases from mother to child. By shuttling nuclear DNA from an egg cell to a donor cell, the technique enabled the birth of four healthy rhesus macaques monkey males reported in Nature. Some estimates report that 1 in 6,000 people may have inherited a mitochondrial DNA disorder.
In the very same journal dated April 5th 2012, scientist are working with macaques in HIV research, with the hope of removing patients from antiretroviral drug therapy and develop purging techniques that will see the virus removed from its cellular hideouts. Scientists at the International Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) meeting in March have found new ways to lure HIV out of latent immune cells—a first step toward a long-term, drug-free functional cure.
Macaques are also used in the development of vaccines for Hepatitis C virus.
For More Info : HIV Research & Macaques (Nature)
theSTAR: Monkey Testing to Continue
About Author: Khamal Murray is a major in Bioethics & Heath Studies at the University of Toronto and a blogger/writer with http://thejuxtapositionape.blog.com and a special contributor with Alternavox Magazine
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