Husbandry and Management Core-Maintenance of the SPF Breeding Colonies at Yerkes National Primate Research Center

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Project Summary/Abstract Husbandry and Management Core The Yerkes National Primate Research Center (YNPRC) has a long and successful history of breeding rhesus macaques of Indian origin for HIV/AIDS research. This success can be attributed, in part, to continuous U24/U42 support for the management and care of this colony. Since 2002, this support has allowed the rhesus macaque breeding colony at the Yerkes NPRC Field Station to establish a colony pedigree, to transition to full SPF status, to institute MHC profiling, and to validate a rapid in-house Herpes B virus (Macacine herpesvirus 1) screening protocol. Over the past 4 years, the number of individual NIH-funded HIV/AIDS-related projects requiring SPF rhesus monkeys has remained relatively steady, and we are now seeing a post-COVID increase in animal requests. Thus, the main objective of the Husbandry and Management Core for the current U42 application is to leverage the resources provided by the U42 to maximize production of SPF Indian rhesus monkeys and facilitate allocation of these animals for NIH-funded HIV/AIDS research. As part of Aim 1, the Husbandry and Management Core will continue to maintain the SPF status and genetic health as well as the physical and social health of the Colony in order to produce high quality animals with desired MHC genotypes for HIV/AIDS research. As part of Aim 2 to maximize animal production potential, the Husbandry and Management Core will revise the strategies for improving the social competence of young future male breeders and for forming multi-male cohorts of breeders to improve the success of male introductions, and implement a social network analytical approach to assess stability in our large, compound-housed breeding groups, such as fragmentation in matrilines, to improve social stability and avoid the detrimental effect that social instability has on production. Finally, as part of Aim 3 to take an integrated approach to managing colony data sets, the Husbandry and Management Core will transition away from storing socialization and social behavioral datasets in compartmentalized spreadsheets to instead store them in the web-accessible Colony Informatics resource and implement a project management dashboard to facilitate manipulation and summary of data regarding animal availability, requests, and assignments to facilitate tracking and reporting. The success of these aims will ensure that the SPF colony at YNPRC will continue to grow and provide a reliable supply of healthy and genetically well-characterized rhesus macaques for HIV/AIDS research.