Nonhuman Primate Reagent Resource

Summary The Nonhuman Primate Reagent Resource (NHPRR) has 21 years of continuous operation providing specialized reagents to enable and enhance research with nonhuman primate (NHP) models of human disease. This application describes our next five-year plan to develop and distribute these essential NHP- tailored reagents. NHPs serve a crucial role in translational research, providing animal models for exploring the pathogenesis of infectious and noninfectious diseases, and for testing biological therapies and vaccines. Antibodies and biological reagents that target specific immune cells and biomarkers can be essential tools in determining disease mechanisms. Additionally, immunomodulators that can be studied in vivo serve as proof-of-concept for new therapies. While these crucial research tools are available for small animal and human studies, substantial gaps exist for validated NHP research reagents. To overcome this scarcity, for the past 21 years, the NHPRR has fulfilled critical needs within the scientific community by developing, manufacturing and distributing NHP-specific reagents for in vitro diagnostics and for in vivo use. Utilization of this resource has grown dramatically since this program’s inception. During the last five years (2015-2019), we fulfilled 2,821 reagent requests for 320 investigators and distributed ~2,500 grams of recombinant antibodies for administration to NHPs. By continuously availing ourselves of future scientific advances and technological improvements in antibody development, engineering, expression and vectoring, we will keep supporting the scientific community utilizing NHP models across all scientific disciplines.