Harvard To Close New England Primate Research Center

sciencehabit writes "Citing an increasingly bleak outlook for federal research funding, Harvard Medical School is shutting down its major primate center, which has recently experienced the departure of several key scientists and an investigation into its handling of animals. In the announcement, which surprised many primate researchers, the school said it will not seek to renew the New England Primate Research Center's (NEPRC's) 5-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and will 'wind down operations' at the center in Southborough, Massachusetts, over the next 2 years. The center, which has a nearly 50-year history, had done groundbreaking work on an AIDS vaccine and developed animal models for diseases such as Parkinson's, among other accomplishments."

Comments

Not tested on animals

[kimvette]

This comment has not been tested on animals. However, we cannot guarantee that it is not cruelty-free.

Re:Not tested on animals

[TheGratefulNet]

colbert's opening line (from years ago) fits well here:

"no animals were harmed during the making of this work. we tried, but that monkey was just too damned fast!"

Re:Not tested on animals

[VortexCortex]

Humans are not Plants.

Re:what about the monkeys?

[SuperKendall]

Not to worry, they'l soon find new jobs writing pilot scripts for Amazon Prime shows.

Re:what about the monkeys?

[guruevi]

I can't tell you where exactly they're going, but a number of them are already well taken care off by other primate labs. Also, the equipment is being sent to other primate labs.

Re:what about the monkeys?

[fazey]

i suppose they could all get into politics like the rest of the monkeys in DC

Re:what about the monkeys?

[MightyMartian]

Or legislation for Congress!

Re:what about the monkeys?

[the eric conspiracy]

Put to work on the ongoing project for the recreation of the works of Shakespeare.

Re:what about the monkeys?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a horrid, racist remark. Reported to administrators.

True.

It REALLY pissed off the monkeys.

Re:Researchers find: Primates don't likebeinglocke

[wonkey_monkey]

Used to live right around the corner from this place.

I live right around the corner from a lot of places, and I have no idea what's going on in any of them.

Harvard is gone to the dogs.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Its students are cheating. Its professors are either too dumb to use the spreadsheet correctly or so corrupt they cook up data to be shills for austerity mongers. And they cut real research centers to save money. They buy real estate in around Boston from companies going bankrupt and take off the tax rolls of local municipalities (look up the Aresenal area). I think Harvard's mission has become growing the endowments as much as possible while coasting on the goodwill created by earlier decades of solid academic work.

Re:Harvard is gone to the dogs.

[DSS11Q13]

I don't disagree with you (Harvard grad here), but a couple things I need to point out. First, as a professor, I can tell you that cheating happens everywhere. Second, I saw the spreadsheet thing on the Colbert Report, which is, of course, not a reliable news source. While it's certainly possible that there is an issue with corruption, Harvard is also composed of about a dozen different schools with totally different sources of funding, faculties, etc. One school having corrupt professors would not indicate anything about the others.

Re:Harvard is gone to the dogs.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Sir,

I am surprised you got the spreadsheet scandal via Colbert. It has been making news for quite some time. There was an NPR report, one BBC report etc. So please do not assume I am getting all my news from Colbert.

Further, very surprisingly, Stewart and Colbert seem to care for accuracy, despite being a comedy show. Being comedians they are able to laugh off their mistakes on air and apologize by making fun of themselves. But still, they do that when they make a mistake. The one I remember recently is Stewart making up a funny dickish name connected with civil rights, and it turned out to be a real name. The on air apology from him made me wonder, why isn't he called the newsman and the others jokers.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/04/microsoft-excel-the-ruiner-of-global-economies/

[2] http://news.silobreaker.com/does-this-spreadsheet-error-invalidate-the-case-for-austerity-5_2266755871209947215

[3] http://news.silobreaker.com/three-umass-profs-expose-flaw-in-harvard-research-that-underpinned-austerity-5_2266756154677788864

[4] http://news.yahoo.com/student-took-eminent-economists-debt-issue-won-095347790--business.html

[5] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22223190

[6] http://chronicle.com/article/UMass-Graduate-Student-Talks/138763/

Re:Not ideal, but important research

[Samantha Wright]

It should probably also be stressed at some point that anything that can be tested on a less sentient animal (generally rats and mice) is tested there extensively first. Primate testing is extremely expensive and the ethics guidelines are generally taken very seriously.

Re:$32 Billion Endowment

[metlin]

I found this comment on the RTFA to be of particular interest. It offers a lot more insight into what may have driven Harvard to shut down the center.

This article only touches the surface on what happened. It wasn't about Harvard wanting to destroy a "vibrant" center (and I'm very curious as to who the "most well-funded faculty members" who left are and when did they leave?). It may not have even been the most recent horrible press that the primate center gave Harvard, because as in sports, bad behavior and bad press would have been forgiven by Harvard if the science at the primate center was stellar. But the primate center decidedly wasn't stellar.

It has been almost 20 years since anyone currently working at the primate center and directly working with monkeys had a first author publication (other than a review article) in a top tier science journal. For a Harvard department, that was a pitiful track record. Even in the rather limited world of primate research, Harvard's primate center was second tier. That was why when IAVI (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) wanted to figure out how attenuated SIV worked (the attenuated SIV was long considered the domain of Harvard's primate center) it ended up giving the vast majority of its money to other primate centers. Moreover, even at HMS, the best primate research was coming from researchers NOT associated with Harvard's own primate center, those researchers were outsourcing their needs to other primate centers.

This made Harvard's own primate center expendable and a potential net liability for Harvard especially given all its recent negative press. To make matters worse, the primate center's prior director, a man largely responsible for the center's recent decline, sluggish scientific output, and at least some of the mismanagement at the primate center, was tone deaf to the negative publicity, acting like he had nothing to apologize for, and must have further antagonized the center's position at Harvard. Even after he was forced to resign, Harvard never attracted a first rate primate researcher to take over and energize the place. In the end, Harvard must have decided it was better to just outsource its primate needs and reduce its negative publicity.

The more interesting question is whether this will turn out to be an isolated event or really a nod to the increasing power of animal rights activists.