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Full-Text Articles in Organisms

Effect Of Temperature On The Microbiome Of A Laboratory-Reared Colony Of Haemaphysalis Longicornis Ticks, Brianna L. Mitchell May 2023

Effect Of Temperature On The Microbiome Of A Laboratory-Reared Colony Of Haemaphysalis Longicornis Ticks, Brianna L. Mitchell

Honors Theses

Haemaphysalis longicornis ticks are invasive to the United States with potential to transmit several tick-borne pathogens that are native to the United States. Based on existing locations of H. longicornis in its native regions in Asia, as well as its invasive populations that are established in the United States, several geographic range prediction models have been produced to help understand future range expansion and distribution of this invasive tick in North America. Unfortunately, these models do not all agree and there is uncertainty associated with the potential geographic range expansion of H. longicornis ticks in North America. Climate can affect …


Effect Of Temperature On The Microbiome Of A Laboratory Reared Colony Of Haemaphysalis Longicornis Ticks, Brianna Mitchell May 2023

Effect Of Temperature On The Microbiome Of A Laboratory Reared Colony Of Haemaphysalis Longicornis Ticks, Brianna Mitchell

Poster Presentations

Honors research poster.

Haemaphysalis longicornis is a species of tick native to eastern Asia, including eastern China, Japan, eastern Russia, and Korea. To date, it has invaded and has now established its existence in Australia, New Zealand, and several of the Pacific Islands. This species of tick has recently been introduced to the United States, having a confirmed sighting in November 2017 on a sheep farm in New Jersey and since establishing populations in 18 states along the east coast and Appalachia. Based on the existing locations of H. longicornis in its native regions, as well as in the United …


Amphisbaenian Head Movement And Burrowing Forces In Damp Granular Media, Jacob Newell Jan 2023

Amphisbaenian Head Movement And Burrowing Forces In Damp Granular Media, Jacob Newell

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Damp granular media is a difficult environment to study because it is both practically complex and it lacks equations which fully describe its behavior. In this study, an oscillatory lateral head movement and its effects while penetrating damp granular media were tested using a robophysical model. This experimental research was inspired by the burrowing behavior of the clade Amphisbaenia, a group of usually limbless squamates that employ a variety of different burrowing behaviors, but it can apply to a wide range of burrowers. This research could help with both human burrowing technologies and the further investigation of animal behaviors.


Wild Mice With Different Social Network Sizes Vary In Brain Gene Expression, Patricia C. Lopes, Barbara König Jul 2020

Wild Mice With Different Social Network Sizes Vary In Brain Gene Expression, Patricia C. Lopes, Barbara König

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Background

Appropriate social interactions influence animal fitness by impacting several processes, such as mating, territory defense, and offspring care. Many studies shedding light on the neurobiological underpinnings of social behavior have focused on nonapeptides (vasopressin, oxytocin, and homologues) and on sexual or parent-offspring interactions. Furthermore, animals have been studied under artificial laboratory conditions, where the consequences of behavioral responses may not be as critical as when expressed under natural environments, therefore obscuring certain physiological responses. We used automated recording of social interactions of wild house mice outside of the breeding season to detect individuals at both tails of a distribution …


Use Of Diatomaceous Earth And Copper Oxide Wire Particles To Control Gastrointestinal Nematodes In Lambs, Olivia Jones May 2020

Use Of Diatomaceous Earth And Copper Oxide Wire Particles To Control Gastrointestinal Nematodes In Lambs, Olivia Jones

Animal Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Abstract

Anthelmintic resistance (AR) urges alternatives to control gastrointestinal nematodes (GIN). Copper oxide wire particles (COWP) are more efficacious when used with other dewormers and little is known on efficacy of diatomaceous earth (DE) to control gastrointestinal parasites. The objective was to examine the effects of DE and COWP on GIN control. Katahdin lambs (n = 32; ~150 d of age; 25.0 ± 1.8 kg) were randomly assigned to receive: 1) DE fed at an estimated 2% dry matter intake (with the assumption of moderate consumption of bermudagrass forage and provided supplement), 2) 1g COWP, 3) both 2% DE and …


Immune-Endocrine Links To Gregariousness In Wild House Mice, Patricia C. Lopes, Esther H. D. Carlitz, Morgan Kindel, Barbara König Feb 2020

Immune-Endocrine Links To Gregariousness In Wild House Mice, Patricia C. Lopes, Esther H. D. Carlitz, Morgan Kindel, Barbara König

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Social interactions are critically important for survival and impact overall-health, but also impose costs on animals, such as exposure to contagious agents. The immune system can play a critical role in modulating social behavior when animals are sick, as has been demonstrated within the context of “sickness behaviors.” Can immune molecules affect or be affected by social interactions even when animals are not sick, therefore serving a role in mediating pathogen exposure? We tested whether markers of immune function in both the blood and the brain are associated with gregariousness, quantified as number of animals interacted with per day. To …


The Potential For Dickeya Dianthicola To Be Vectored By Two Common Insect Pests Of Potatoes, Jonas K. Insinga Dec 2019

The Potential For Dickeya Dianthicola To Be Vectored By Two Common Insect Pests Of Potatoes, Jonas K. Insinga

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dickeya dianthicola (Samson) causing blackleg and soft rot was first detected in potatoes grown in Maine in 2014. Previous work has suggested that insects, particularly aphids, may be able to vector bacteria in this genus between plants, but no conclusive work has been done to confirm this theory. In order to determine whether insect-mediated transmission is likely to occur in potato fields, two model potato pests common in Maine were used: the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decimlineata Say) and the green peach aphids (Myzus persicae Sulzer). Olfactometry and recruitment experiments evaluated if either insect discriminates between infected and …


No Evidence For Kin Protection In The Expression Of Sickness Behaviors In House Mice, Patricia C. Lopes, Per Block, Alice Pontiggia, Anna K. Lindholm, Barbara König Nov 2018

No Evidence For Kin Protection In The Expression Of Sickness Behaviors In House Mice, Patricia C. Lopes, Per Block, Alice Pontiggia, Anna K. Lindholm, Barbara König

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

When infected, animals change their behaviors in several ways, including by decreasing their activity, their food and water intake, and their interest in social interactions. These behavioral alterations are collectively called sickness behaviors and, for several decades, the main hypotheses put forward to explain this phenomenon were that engaging in sickness behaviors facilitated the fever response and improved the likelihood of host survival. However, a new hypothesis was recently proposed suggesting that engaging in sickness behaviors may serve to protect kin. We tested this kin protection hypothesis by combining a field and a laboratory experiment in house mice. In both …


Exploring The Impact Of Olfaction On Short-Term And Long-Term Maternal Recognition In Peromyscus Californicus, Mariah F. Conley Jun 2017

Exploring The Impact Of Olfaction On Short-Term And Long-Term Maternal Recognition In Peromyscus Californicus, Mariah F. Conley

Honors Projects

Previous studies have established a connection between social behavior and olfaction, in that as anosmia causes a decrease in perception of social cues, social behavior itself decreases. Studies investigating maternal behavior specifically have focused on foster care, in which the behaviors formed during parturition are conserved and displayed with unrelated pups. The combination of long-term retention of maternal behavior, maternal recognition, and olfaction has yet to be explored. In this study, I induced anosmia in Peromyscus californicus, a monogamous, biparental species, and analyzed their behavior with their own pups and with foreign pups in the days after birth, as well …


Localization And Distribution Of Primary Cilia In The Adult Mouse Heart, Ali Zarban, Hannah C. Saternos, Andrea L. Kalinoski, Lijun Liu, Surya M. Nauli, Wissam A. Aboualaiwi Nov 2016

Localization And Distribution Of Primary Cilia In The Adult Mouse Heart, Ali Zarban, Hannah C. Saternos, Andrea L. Kalinoski, Lijun Liu, Surya M. Nauli, Wissam A. Aboualaiwi

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Although primary cilia have been shown to play crucial roles in the development of embryonic mouse heart, their presence and function in adult mouse heart remains controversial. In this study, the presence of primary cilia in adult mouse heart was investigated. The presence of primary cilia was initially demonstrated in the surface of cardiac cells of mouse hearts from both young and adult mice by immunostaining with acetylated α-tubulin, a ciliary structural marker. The presence of cardiac primary cilia in 1-, 3-, 6- and 12-month old mice was further confirmed by staining heart tissues with an antibody against pericentrin, a …


Microhabitat Use Affects Goby (Gobiidae) Cue Choice In Spatial Learning Task, G. E. White, C. Brown Sep 2016

Microhabitat Use Affects Goby (Gobiidae) Cue Choice In Spatial Learning Task, G. E. White, C. Brown

Culum Brown, PhD

This study investigated whether spatial learning ability and cue use of gobies (Gobiidae) from two contrasting habitats differed in a spatial task. Gobies were collected from the spatially complex rock pools and dynamic, homogenous sandy shores. Fishes were trained to locate a shelter under the simulated threat of predation and it was determined whether they used local or extra-maze (global) and geometric cues to do so. It was hypothesized that fishes from rock pools would outperform fishes from sandy shores in their ability to relocate shelter and the two groups would differ in their cue use. It was found that …


Predator Recognition And Responses In The Endangered Macquarie Perch (Macquaria Australasica), Culum Brown, Jennifer Morgan Sep 2016

Predator Recognition And Responses In The Endangered Macquarie Perch (Macquaria Australasica), Culum Brown, Jennifer Morgan

Culum Brown, PhD

Macquarie perch, Macquaria austalasica, is an endangered species endemic to southern Australia whose distribution is highly fragmented and continues to decline. Key threatening processes include habitat destruction, dams and weirs, overfishing and interactions with introduced species. Here, we examined the responses of small and large Macquarie perch to two native predators and to the introduced redfin perch, Perca fluviatilis. Our results showed that Macquarie perch generally avoided large-bodied native predators but was attracted to small-bodied native predators. Responses to large and small redfin perch lay between these two extremes, suggesting that the Macquarie perch does treat these foreign fish as …


Laterality Enhances Numerical Skills In The Guppy, Poecilia Reticulata, Marco Dadda, Christian Agrillo, Angelo Bisazza, Culum Brown Sep 2016

Laterality Enhances Numerical Skills In The Guppy, Poecilia Reticulata, Marco Dadda, Christian Agrillo, Angelo Bisazza, Culum Brown

Culum Brown, PhD

It has been hypothesized that cerebral lateralization can significantly enhance cognition and that this was one of the primary selective forces shaping its wide-spread evolution amongst vertebrate taxa. Here, we tested this hypothesis by examining the link between cerebral lateralization and numerical discrimination. Guppies, Poecilia reticulata, were sorted into left, right and non-lateralized groups using a standard mirror test and their numerical discrimination abilities tested in both natural shoal choice and abstract contexts. Our results show that strongly lateralized guppies have enhanced numerical abilities compared to non-lateralized guppies irrespective of context. These data provide further credence to the notion that …


Rescued Goats At A Sanctuary Display Positive Mood After Former Neglect, Elodie F. Briefer, Alan G. Mcelligott Sep 2016

Rescued Goats At A Sanctuary Display Positive Mood After Former Neglect, Elodie F. Briefer, Alan G. Mcelligott

Elodie Briefer, PhD

Moods influence cognitive processes in that people in positive moods expect more positive events to occur and less negative ones (“optimistic bias”), whereas the opposite happens for people in negative moods (“pessimistic bias”). The evidence for an effect of mood on cognitive bias is also increasing in animals, suggesting that measures of optimism and pessimism could provide useful indicators of animal welfare. For obvious ethical reasons, serious poor treatments cannot be easily replicated in large mammals in order to study their long-term effects on moods. In this study, we tested the long-term effects (>2 years) of prior poor welfare …


Artificial Neural Network Approach For Revealing Individuality, Group Membership And Age Information In Goat Kid Contact Calls, Livio Favaro, Elodie F. Briefer, Alan G. Mcelligott Sep 2016

Artificial Neural Network Approach For Revealing Individuality, Group Membership And Age Information In Goat Kid Contact Calls, Livio Favaro, Elodie F. Briefer, Alan G. Mcelligott

Elodie Briefer, PhD

Machine learning techniques are becoming an important tool for studying animal vocal communication. The goat (Capra hircus) is a very social species, in which vocal communication and recognition are important. We tested the reliability of a Multi-Layer Perceptron (feed-forward Artificial Neural Network, ANN) to automate the process of classification of calls according to individual identity, group membership and maturation in this species. Vocalisations were obtained from 10 half-sibling (same father but different mothers) goat kids, belonging to 3 distinct social groups. We recorded 157 contact calls emitted during first week, and 164 additional calls recorded from the same individuals at …


Emotions In Goats: Mapping Physiological, Behavioural And Vocal Profiles, Elodie F. Briefer, Federico Tettamanti, Alan G. Mcelligott Sep 2016

Emotions In Goats: Mapping Physiological, Behavioural And Vocal Profiles, Elodie F. Briefer, Federico Tettamanti, Alan G. Mcelligott

Elodie Briefer, PhD

Emotions are important because they enable the selection of appropriate behavioural decisions in response to external or internal events. Techniques for understanding and assessing animal emotions, and particularly positive ones, are lacking. Emotions can be characterized by two dimensions: their arousal (bodily excitation) and their valence (negative or positive). Both dimensions can affect emotions in different ways. It is thus crucial to assess their effects on biological parameters simultaneously, so that accurate indicators of arousal and valence can be identified. To find convenient and noninvasive tools to assess emotions in goats, Capra hircus, we measured physiological, behavioural and vocal responses …


Fallow Bucks Attend To Vocal Cues Of Motivation And Fatigue, Benjamin J. Pitcher, Elodie F. Briefer, Elisabetta Vannoni, Alan G. Mcelligott Sep 2016

Fallow Bucks Attend To Vocal Cues Of Motivation And Fatigue, Benjamin J. Pitcher, Elodie F. Briefer, Elisabetta Vannoni, Alan G. Mcelligott

Elodie Briefer, PhD

Vocalizations encode a range of information about the caller, and variation in calling behavior and vocal structure may provide listeners with information about the motivation and condition of the caller. Fallow bucks only vocalize during the breeding season and can produce more than 3000 groans per hour. Males modulate their calling rates, calling faster when other calling males and/or females are nearby. Groans also reveal caller fatigue, becoming shorter and higher pitched toward the end of the rut. Thus, fallow deer groans vary both over very short (minute to minute) and longer timescales (the rut). However, no studies have investigated …


Mother Goats Do Not Forget Their Kids’ Calls, Elodie F. Briefer, Mónica Padilla De La Torre, Alan G. Mcelligott Sep 2016

Mother Goats Do Not Forget Their Kids’ Calls, Elodie F. Briefer, Mónica Padilla De La Torre, Alan G. Mcelligott

Elodie Briefer, PhD

Parent–offspring recognition is crucial for offspring survival. At long distances, this recognition is mainly based on vocalizations. Because of maturation-related changes to the structure of vocalizations, parents have to learn successive call versions produced by their offspring throughout ontogeny in order to maintain recognition. However, because of the difficulties involved in following the same individuals over years, it is not clear how long this vocal memory persists. Here, we investigated long-term vocal recognition in goats. We tested responses of mothers to their kids’ calls 7–13 months after weaning. We then compared mothers’ responses to calls of their previous kids with …


Semi-Wild Chimpanzees Open Hard-Shelled Fruits Differently Across Communities, Bruce Rawlings, Marina Davilla-Ross, Sarah T. Boysen Sep 2016

Semi-Wild Chimpanzees Open Hard-Shelled Fruits Differently Across Communities, Bruce Rawlings, Marina Davilla-Ross, Sarah T. Boysen

Sarah Boysen, PhD

Researchers investigating the evolutionary roots of human culture have turned to comparing behaviours across nonhuman primate communities, with tool-based foraging in particular receiving much attention. This study examined whether natural extractive foraging behaviours other than tool selection differed across nonhuman primate colonies that had the same foods available. Specifically, the behaviours applied to open the hard-shelled fruits of Strychnos spp. were examined in three socially separate, semi-wild colonies of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) that lived under shared ecological conditions at Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage, and were comparable in their genetic makeup. The chimpanzees (N = 56) consistently applied six techniques to open …


Mother--Offspring Recognition Via Contact Calls In Cattle, Bos Taurus, Mónica Padilla De La Torre, Elodie F. Briefer, Brad M. Ochocki, Alan G. Mcelligott, Tom Reader Sep 2016

Mother--Offspring Recognition Via Contact Calls In Cattle, Bos Taurus, Mónica Padilla De La Torre, Elodie F. Briefer, Brad M. Ochocki, Alan G. Mcelligott, Tom Reader

Elodie Briefer, PhD

Individual recognition in gregarious species is fundamental in order to avoid misdirected parental investment. In ungulates, two very different parental care strategies have been identified: ‘hider’ offspring usually lie concealed in vegetation whereas offspring of ‘follower’ species remain with their mothers while they forage. These two strategies have been suggested to impact on mother--offspring vocal recognition, with unidirectional recognition of the mother by offspring occurring in hiders and bidirectional recognition in followers. In domestic cattle, Bos taurus, a facultative hider species, vocal communication and recognition have not been studied in detail under free-ranging conditions, where cows and calves can graze …


Acoustic Analysis Of Cattle (Bos Taurus) Mother–Offspring Contact Calls From A Source–Filter Theory Perspective, Mónica Padilla De La Torre, Elodie F. Briefer, Tom Reader, Alan G. Mcelligott Sep 2016

Acoustic Analysis Of Cattle (Bos Taurus) Mother–Offspring Contact Calls From A Source–Filter Theory Perspective, Mónica Padilla De La Torre, Elodie F. Briefer, Tom Reader, Alan G. Mcelligott

Elodie Briefer, PhD

Cattle vocalisations have been proposed as potential indicators of animal welfare. How-ever, very few studies have investigated the acoustic structure and information encoded in these vocalisations using advanced analysis techniques. Vocalisations play key roles in a wide range of communication contexts; e.g. for individual recognition and to help coordinate social behaviours. Two factors have greatly assisted our progress in developing an understanding of animal vocal communication. Firstly, more rigorous call analysis methods allow us to describe the variation in the vocal parameters in unprecedented detail. Secondly, the adoption of the “source–filter theory” of call production links the acoustic structure of …


Autonomic Nervous System Reactivity In A Free-Ranging Mammal: Effects Of Dominance Rank And Personality, Elodie F. Briefer, James A. Oxley, Alan G. Mcelligott Sep 2016

Autonomic Nervous System Reactivity In A Free-Ranging Mammal: Effects Of Dominance Rank And Personality, Elodie F. Briefer, James A. Oxley, Alan G. Mcelligott

Elodie Briefer, PhD

Modulation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity allows animals to effectively respond to internal and external stimuli in everyday challenges via changes in, for example, heart and respiration rate. Various factors, ranging from social such as dominance rank to internal such as personality or affective states can impact animal physiology. Our knowledge of the combinatory effects of social and internal factors on ANS basal activity and reactivity, and of the importance that each factor has in determining physiological parameters, is limited, particularly in nonhuman, free-ranging animals. In this study, we tested the effects of dominance rank and personality (assessed …


Overcoming Response Bias Using Symbolic Representations Of Number By Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes), Sarah T. Boysen, Kimberly L. Mukobi, Gary G. Berntson Sep 2016

Overcoming Response Bias Using Symbolic Representations Of Number By Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes), Sarah T. Boysen, Kimberly L. Mukobi, Gary G. Berntson

Sarah Boysen, PhD

We previously reported that chimpanzees were unable to optimally select the smaller of two candy arrays in order to receive a larger reward. When Arabic numerals were substituted for the candy arrays, animals who had had prior training with numerical symbols showed an immediate and significant improvement in performance and were able to select reliably the smaller numeric representation in order to obtain a larger reward. Poor performance with candy arrays was interpreted as reflecting a response bias toward the intrinsic incentive and/or perceptual features of the larger array. In contrast, the Arabic numerals represent numerosity symbolically and appear to …


Spontaneous Discrimination Of Natural Stimuli By Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes), David A. Brown, Sarah T. Boysen Sep 2016

Spontaneous Discrimination Of Natural Stimuli By Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes), David A. Brown, Sarah T. Boysen

Sarah Boysen, PhD

Six chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) were presented with pairs of color photographic images of 5 different categories of animals (cat, chimp, gorilla, tiger, fish). The subjects responded to each pair using symbols for "same" and "different." Both within- and between-category discriminations were tested, and all chimpanzees classified the image pairs in accordance with the 5 experimenter-defined categories under conditions of nondifferential reinforcement. Although previous studies have demonstrated identification or discrimination of natural categories by nonhuman animals, subjects were typically differentially reinforced for their responses. The present findings demonstrate that chimpanzees can classify natural objects spontaneously and that such classifications may be …


Chimpanzee Research: An Examination Of Its Contribution To Biomedical Knowledge And Efficacy In Combating Human Diseases, Jarrod Bailey, Jonathan Balcombe, Theodora Capaldo Sep 2016

Chimpanzee Research: An Examination Of Its Contribution To Biomedical Knowledge And Efficacy In Combating Human Diseases, Jarrod Bailey, Jonathan Balcombe, Theodora Capaldo

Jonathan Balcombe, PhD

Research on captive chimpanzees incurs considerable animal welfare, ethical and financial costs. Advocates of such research claim these costs are outweighed by substantial advancements in biomedical knowledge, and that the genetic similarity of chimpanzees to humans enables the former to make critical contributions to preventing, diagnosing and combating human diseases. To assess these claims, we examined the disciplines investigated in 749 studies of captive chimpanzees published from 1995-2004 inclusive, and subjected 95 randomly selected papers to a detailed citation analysis:

49.5% (47/95) of papers had not been cited at the time of this study; 38.5% (34/95) were cited by 116 …


An Examination Of Chimpanzee Use In Human Cancer Research, Jarrod Bailey Sep 2016

An Examination Of Chimpanzee Use In Human Cancer Research, Jarrod Bailey

Jarrod Bailey, PhD

Advocates of chimpanzee research claim the genetic similarity of humans and chimpanzees make them an indispensable research tool to combat human diseases. Given that cancer is a leading cause of human death worldwide, one might expect that if chimpanzees were needed for, or were productive in, cancer research, then they would have been widely used. This comprehensive literature analysis reveals that chimpanzees have scarcely been used in any form of cancer research, and that chimpanzee tumours are extremely rare and biologically different from human cancers. Often, chimpanzee citations described peripheral use of chimpanzee cells and genetic material in predominantly human …


An Analysis Of The Use Of Dogs In Predicting Human Toxicology And Drug Safety, Jarrod Bailey, Michelle Thew, Michael Balls Sep 2016

An Analysis Of The Use Of Dogs In Predicting Human Toxicology And Drug Safety, Jarrod Bailey, Michelle Thew, Michael Balls

Jarrod Bailey, PhD

Dogs remain the main non-rodent species in preclinical drug development. Despite the current dearth of new drug approvals and meagre pipelines, this continues, with little supportive evidence of its value or necessity. To estimate the evidential weight provided by canine data to the probability that a new drug may be toxic to humans, we have calculated Likelihood Ratios (LRs) for an extensive dataset of 2,366 drugs with both animal and human data, including tissue-level effects and Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) Level 1–4 biomedical observations. The resulting LRs show that the absence of toxicity in dogs provides virtually no …


Non-Human Primates In Neuroscience Research: The Case Against Its Scientific Necessity, Jarrod Bailey, Katy Taylor Sep 2016

Non-Human Primates In Neuroscience Research: The Case Against Its Scientific Necessity, Jarrod Bailey, Katy Taylor

Jarrod Bailey, PhD

Public opposition to non-human primate (NHP) experiments is significant, yet those who defend them cite minimal harm to NHPs and substantial human benefit. Here we review these claims of benefit, specifically in neuroscience, and show that: a) there is a default assumption of their human relevance and benefit, rather than robust evidence; b) their human relevance and essential contribution and necessity are wholly overstated; c) the contribution and capacity of non-animal investigative methods are greatly understated; and d) confounding issues, such as species differences and the effects of stress and anaesthesia, are usually overlooked. This is the case in NHP …


Monkey-Based Research On Human Disease: The Implications Of Genetic Differences, Jarrod Bailey Sep 2016

Monkey-Based Research On Human Disease: The Implications Of Genetic Differences, Jarrod Bailey

Jarrod Bailey, PhD

Assertions that the use of monkeys to investigate human diseases is valid scientifically are frequently based on a reported 90–93% genetic similarity between the species. Critical analyses of the relevance of monkey studies to human biology, however, indicate that this genetic similarity does not result in sufficient physiological similarity for monkeys to constitute good models for research, and that monkey data do not translate well to progress in clinical practice for humans. Salient examples include the failure of new drugs in clinical trials, the highly different infectivity and pathology of SIV/HIV, and poor extrapolation of research on Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s …


An Assessment Of The Role Of Chimpanzees In Aids Vaccine Research, Jarrod Bailey Sep 2016

An Assessment Of The Role Of Chimpanzees In Aids Vaccine Research, Jarrod Bailey

Jarrod Bailey, PhD

Prior to Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV)-infected macaques becoming the ‘model of choice’ in the 1990s, chimpanzees were widely used in AIDS vaccine research and testing. Faced with the continued failure to develop an effective human vaccine, some scientists are calling for a return to their widespread use. To assess the past and potential future contribution of chimpanzees to AIDS vaccine development, databases and published literature were systematically searched to compare the results of AIDS vaccine trials in chimpanzees with those of human clinical trials, and to determine whether the chimpanzee trials were predictive of the human response. Protective and/or therapeutic …