BABOON RESEARCH RESOURCE PROGRAM

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This P40 grant application proposes to expand and enhance the Baboon Resource Center at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC). The OUHSC has maintained a baboon facility for over 40 years. Our baboon research program from a small department operation to a program that supports research investigators in three colleges of the Health Sciences Center, two non-profit research institutions on the Oklahoma Health Center Campus, the three main university medical teaching and research institutions in the State of Oklahoma, and 10 medical centers located throughout the United States. Baboons are being used in a growing number of biomedical studies, yet their availability is limited; they are under-represented in existing primate breeding programs and importation from the wild is expensive, difficult, and strictly regulated for health reasons. As the OUHSC has become a reliable baboon resource, we have recognized a need to expand and improve productivity. We propose to enhance our research program by increasing our staff and creasing a new breeding facility. The facility, supported by University funds, will be located at the 7,000 acre USDA Grazinglands Research Station located 30 miles west of the OUHSC near El Reno, Oklahoma. There, we will provide a more naturalistic environment for maintaining the baboon breeding colony in large outdoor corrals. The addition of a non-human primate reproductive behaviorist and a veterinary theriogenologists will provide expertise to assist in increasing our productivity. The primate behaviorist will conduct research studies on baboon reproductive behavior and biology which will identify any reproduction problems and ameliorate them. She will also direct an environmental enrichment program. We will characterize the viral status of the colony and develop a nucleus of baboons for a specific-pathogen-free breeding program, to be established at the Oklahoma State University College of Veterinary Medicine in Stillwater, Oklahoma. This research resource program will strengthen and expand non-human biomedical and behavioral research at the OUHSC, stimulate increased cooperation among regional research institutions, and establish the OUHSC as a nationally-recognized provider of baboons as a research subject.