Bicoastal Marmoset Breeding Center

非人灵长类动物是研究阿尔茨海默病及其相关疾病的重要动物模型

Nonhuman primates (NHP) are crucial animal models for research on Alzheimer’s disease and its related dementias because of their closest evolutionary relatives of humans, with whom they share anatomical, physiological, and gene interactions features. The common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) is a NHP model of increasing importance for aging research. This new world primate provides some unique advantages for the study of aging and aging-related disorders, including its relatively short lifespan among all the NHP used in biomedical research. There has been an increasing number of investigators who are currently using or would like to use marmosets as a model system to study aging and age-related diseases including Alzheimer’s disease. However, there is a significant bottleneck for the research in this field. There are currently no reliable distributors of marmosets for biomedical research in the country. The situation is even direr for researchers who need access to aging marmosets. Recognizing such a bottleneck, NIH has recently funded two marmoset breeding programs including the parent award of this application (“Bicoastal Marmoset Breeding Center”, U24- MH123423). The goal of the proposed project is to fill the gap in the availability of aging marmosets for the study of Alzheimer’s disease and its related dementias. We could use this center to develop a resource of aging marmosets for Alzheimer's disease studies. This resource will be extremely valuable to the scientific community studying Alzheimer's disease and its related dementias.