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Harvard to shut primate research center where monkeys died, citing tough economic climate
04/23/2013 | 1:30 PM
By Carolyn Y. Johnson / Globe Staff


The Harvard primate research center where four monkeys died because of animal care problems will be largely shut down by 2015, Harvard Medical School announced Tuesday afternoon. The university cited a tough economic climate for biomedical research funding and shifting long-term strategic plans.

The announcement stunned outside researchers, because it comes a year and a half after Harvard began investing significant time and resources into the New England Primate Research Center in Southborough, to correct animal care and oversight problems that had resulted in the deaths of four monkeys between June 2010 and Feb. 2012.

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Haigwood said the decision would, at the least, slow down the pace of research into diseases that affect human health and might lead scientists to leave the Boston area to pursue their projects. The primate center is known for its research on infectious diseases, such as AIDS, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease.

Harvard Medical School leaders said they were working on a transition plan to help the 20 faculty, 32 post-doctoral researchers and graduate students, and 150 staff find new positions while continuing to do their jobs to support the animals and research as the center moves to close over the next one to two years. They also are beginning to work on plans to relocate more close to 2,000 monkeys, perhaps to some of the seven other national primate research centers. None of the animals will be euthanized, medical school officials said.

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This year, the primate center received $27 million in federal funding, but universities are bracing for less federal research funding because of recently acted spending cuts. Harvard Medical School estimates that over the next five years, the primate center would demand an investment of $25 million from the medical school.

Dr. William Chin, executive dean for research, said the decision also focused on “how the center fits into the school’s basic priorities and overall goals.”

Chin said the medical school remains committed to biomedical research with non-human primates. A medical school animal facility with 42 primates in the Longwood Medical Area will continue to operate.

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“This is Harvard’s decision,” Anderson said in an interview. “We did not expect it, weren’t aware that it was going to happen. We have no indication the other centers are interested in decreasing their capacity or diminishing the work they do.”

Anderson said it is too soon to know whether the NIH will try to use the funds now going to Harvard to help set up a new primate center or redistribute the funds to the other seven primate centers, which are scattered geographically around the country. In total, NIH spends $87 million a year supporting the primate centers’ operation through base grants.

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Deborah Kochevar, dean of the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, said she was very surprised by the announcement. Kochevar chaired a panel of outside specialists who reviewed operations at the primate center and issued a report last summer with suggestions for improving operations at the center, and she said Harvard seemed committed to fixing the problems and the future of the center.

“One of the points that the panel that I served on made strongly is that we believed that as one of the oldest primate research centers in the US, as an affiliate of Harvard, that the NEPRC was really looked up to as a model,” Kochevar said. “I think I’m safe in saying the unanimous consensus of our panel was that this was a very important resource for science, as well as for Harvard.”

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