Center News - Washington National Primate Research Center

Grant to Study Colored Light for Pain Management

Jim Kuchenbecker and Jay Neitz are part of a collaborative team that has been awarded a highly competitive, nearly $8 million grant provided by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The grant will fund groundbreaking research titled: “Neural Mechanisms of Colored Light-Driven Analgesia.” The group’s research explores the use of colored light to modulate pain pathways in the brain. This work represents an innovative approach to managing pain without the use of opioids, contributing to a vital area of research aimed at addressing the ongoing opioid crisis. The project is set to span five years. It will involve a multidisciplinary team of investigators, including Jay Neitz, PhD, vision neuroscientist, and Jim Kuchenbecker, PhD, bioengineer, and vision scientist at the University of Washington and two other institutions, Norman Taylor, MD, PhD at the University of Utah and Matt Mauck at the University of North Carolina. This grant, a part of the NIH HEAL Initiative, supports collaborative approaches to generate new mechanistic knowledge to improve pain management.

In clinical studies, colored light has been shown to be more effective in ameliorating pain than white light when compared at equal brightness. This implicates color-opponent circuitry in the primate retina in the neural mechanism of light-driven analgesia. Because of the unique mechanisms responsible for carrying color information in humans shared only by other primates, nonhuman primate research has been essential color research. During the last century, it was assumed that the neurons in the retina carrying color information were involved in conscious color perception, mediating the sensations of red, green, blue, and yellow. However, in 2005, Dennis Dacey and colleagues at the University of Washington discovered that retinal ganglion cells involved in non-image-forming visual capacities, including synchronizing our internal biological clock to the external day, are color-opponent making them sunrise-sunset detectors sensitive to the change in the color of the sky from blue to orange when the sun is at the horizon.

Since then, Kuchenbecher, Neitz, and their colleagues in the UW Department of Ophthalmology have discovered that multiple types of neurons in the primate retina carry color information integrating environmental light cues and relaying them to various brain centers. Their influence extends far beyond circadian entrainment, encompassing sleep, mood, cognition, metabolism, and overall health. Understanding these diverse roles has significant implications for therapies targeting light exposure to improve health and well-being. These include influencing pain perception and sensitivity. This may make sense in terms of primate evolution when being able to endure pain may have been critical to survival. After the sun goes down, an injured primate ancestor exposed to the elements in the great outdoors is subject to many life-threatening hazards, including hypothermia, starvation, or being killed by predators. Seeing the color of the sunset might indicate to an injured primate ancestor that getting back to safety is more important than focusing on the pain they are experiencing. Signals from color-sensitive ganglion cells may communicate with ascending pain centers to ameliorate pain until the animal is safe at home. The proposed research will illuminate the underlying mechanisms and has the promise to provide new strategies for controlling pain using light.

Do You Need a Measles Booster?

WaNPRC Director Dr Deborah Fuller spoke with Everyday Health about the efficacy of MMR vaccines and whether or not adults need a booster.

The current measles outbreak that has killed at least two people so far in Texas and New Mexico were in unvaccinated people, one child, one adult. The Centers for Disease Control says the two-dose regimen of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine is 97% effective against measles.

“Most people who have received two doses of the MMR vaccine do not need a measles booster shot, but some specific individuals may benefit,” Dr Fuller said, adding that it’s vital to know your vaccination and health history, and whether you may benefit from an MMR vaccine booster if you’re in a vulnerable group, such as people who only had one does of the MMR vaccine or who were vaccinated when a less effective vaccine was used.

The CDC says measles does not have an antiviral treatment, and vaccines are the best defense against infection.

New Paper: HIV May Increase Risk of Prolonged Zika Infections

A new paper co-authored by three WaNPRC researchers in Frontiers in Immunology indicates that people with HIV may be at greater risk for prolonged Zika virus (ZIKV) infections, and that people vulnerable to mosquito-borne illnesses like Zika would benefit from protections like vaccines.

The paper, “Persistent innate immune dysfunction and ZIKV replication in the gastrointestinal tract during SIV infection in pigtail macaques,” suggests that people living with HIV may be at greater risk for prolonged Zika virus infections and that the virus stayed in the body longer.

Dr. Megan O’Connor, Director Deb Fuller and former WaNPRC researcher and current affiliate Dr. Michael Gale contributed to the paper. The study looked at nonhuman primates (NHPs) co-infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) and Zika, the disease involved in a well-known outbreak in the Americas in 2015-2016 that infected tens of thousands of people and caused symptoms ranging from a rash and fever to microencephaly in babies (an abnormally small head), and even death. In the study NHPs had a harder time fighting off Zika, and the Zika virus stayed in their body longer, especially in places like the gut.

They wrote: “Collectively, these findings uniquely suggest that untreated SIV infection may promote inflammatory cellular innate responses and create a state of persistent immune activation that contributes to prolonged ZIKV viremia and persistence in the gastrointestinal tract. Furthermore, these results suggest that people living with HIV and other immunocompromised individuals could be at higher risk for prolonged ZIKV infection, potentially extending the window of ZIKV transmission. These insights highlight the importance of including people living with HIV in strategies for deploying vaccines and treatments against ZIKV.”

In other words, this indicates that people living with HIV, who have weaker immune systems, might have a harder time fighting off Zika, and it could stay in their bodies for a longer time. The researchers said this means public health officials need to make sure such people get treatments, such as vaccines, to help them fight off Zika more effectively.

You can read the entire paper, here.

Dr. Fuller was appointed director of WaNPRC in late last year.

Dr O’Connor was appointed in February to the University of Washington faculty as Assistant Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology. She is a Core Scientist in the WaNPRC Infectious Disease and Translational Medicine Unit and focuses on HIV viral co-infections with the goal of improving treatment and vaccine strategies for people living with HIV and other immunocompromised people.

Director for Research Lands Zika Papers in The Lancet

WaNPRC’s Interim Assoc. Director for Research, Kristina Adams Waldorf collaborated on a four-part series with other researchers in The Lancet Infectious Diseases and The Lancet Microbe. The series identified key research priorities needed to detect and mitigate the threat of future mosquito-borne Zika virus outbreaks.

Dr Adams Waldorf is a leading researcher on Zika virus, which emerged in the Americas in 2015 and resulted in a devastating epidemic of infants born with small heads (microcephaly) and other severe congenital malformations.

The four manuscripts focus on: Zika research priorities for preparedness and response, vaccines and monoclonal antibodies, non-human primate models of Zika virus, and sharing of specimens and data to accelerate Zika research and development.

In the paper in which she was the senior author, the role of NHP models in research and developing zika countermeasures, she notes that Zika virus remains a threat to global pregnancies, is now endemic in 92 countries, and can be found in mosquitos in another 60 countries.

Dr Adams Waldorf writes that developing therapeutics against Zika requires nonhuman primate research to mirror the physiology of human pregnancies. NHP pregnancy is “remarkably similar to human pregnancy” she writes, from the interface between the fetus and mother to the fetal development.

“NHPs have emerged as the gold standard model for understanding the pathogenesis of ZIKV infection in humans and human pregnancy. Accelerating research and discovery on ZIKV will continue to rely on the availability of diverse non-pregnant and pregnant NHP models that can address different aspects of viral pathophysiology,” she writes.

Another paper in the series notes that there are no licensed Zika vaccines or monoclonal antibodies currently available, which means world’s populations, particularly those who may become pregnant, are unprotected from Zika transmission, infection, and disease.

Dr Adams-Waldorf’s paper can be found here: Role of non-human primate models in accelerating research and developing countermeasures against Zika virus infection published in The Lancet Microbe. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(24)00298-2/fulltext

The other papers are:

Zika virus vaccines and monoclonal antibodies: a priority agenda for research and development: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(24)00750-3/fulltext

Zika virus: advancing a priority research agenda for preparedness and response: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(24)00794-1/fulltext

Specimen and data sharing to advance research and development on Zika virus: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(24)00325-2/fulltext

Why I Work in Animal Research

This Guest Director’s Blog is by Mark Walton, PhD.
He is a senior research scientist at WaNPRC in the Neuroscience core. We welcomed his timely thoughts in a climate in which it’s valuable to understand the importance of animal research in advancing human and animal health.

In January of 2002, my first child, a son, was born. When he was still only minutes old, the doctor handed me our newborn child and said, “Here’s your son.” The joy I felt in that moment was beyond description, and I couldn’t help speculating about what the future would hold. What sort of life would he lead? Would I be up to the task of preparing this utterly helpless person for the independence of adulthood? I desperately hoped that he would one day find a career path that he would find fulfilling. I thought, too, about the fact that this newly arrived human being that had been entrusted to our care would likely outlive us by at least a couple of decades. I hoped that he would one day find love so that he would always have a family that he could trust.

As I held him in my arms for the first time, I could see that his skin had a bluish tint, but I wasn’t worried at first. We had been warned that newborn babies often take a little while to get their natural color, as their delicate little lungs begin to supply oxygen for the first time. I was so engrossed in the tiny miracle that rested in my arms that I failed to notice the growing concern that must have shown on the faces of the medical professionals that surrounded me. My own concern began to grow slowly, an empty feeling in my gut as I waited for the bluish tint to his skin to turn pink. Instead, his color worsened until a nurse gently took him from me. Soon a doctor explained to me that our son was having trouble breathing because his lungs were not as mature as they should have been. My wife and I were told that he had been taken to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), where they would help him to breathe. The technical term for this is respiratory distress syndrome.

That night my wife and I somehow managed to get to sleep. In the morning, the doctor told us that our baby had a “rough night.” She explained that normal lungs produce something called surfactant, which essentially keeps the lungs from sticking together when we exhale. To understand the need for surfactant she asked us to imagine trying to inflate a balloon that was wet on the inside. Our baby’s lungs, she said, were not mature enough to produce the surfactant that he needed. During the night, when he tried to inhale, one of his lungs stuck together. This ripped a hole in the lung, which caused it to collapse.

I listened, doing my best to show a strength that I didn’t feel. I knew this would be even worse for my wife, who was listening to the same horror story after giving birth to a baby. After the doctor finished, I stepped out into the hallway. The moment the door closed the fear that I had so carefully hidden came pouring out like flood water from a collapsed dam. In the hallway of the maternity ward – which should have been filled with joy – I sank to the floor, unable to stand. I wondered if our son was going to die without being held by his mother even once. I must have been quite a sight: a six-foot-three man crying uncontrollably on the floor while new parents walked past me with their healthy babies.

Later that morning, my wife and I were told that we could go to see our son. The doctor led us to the NICU but paused before opening the door. “I need to tell you what you are going to see,” she said. “Your son has a little ‘boo-boo’.” She used those words to describe what turned out to be a hole in our baby’s chest, into which a tube had been inserted. I remember watching the little drops of our child’s blood moving back and forth inside the semi-transparent tubing.

I couldn’t help wondering what our tiny son, just one day old, thought of the world that he’d entered. To him, it must surely be a place of endless pain and suffering. He hadn’t known comfort or love, except for those few precious minutes, in my arms. I would have done anything – even volunteered to be tortured to death – to take away his suffering and heal him.

In the days that followed, our son received an artificial surfactant, developed through years of research. It worked like a miracle. Soon, we were able to bring him home. That was 2002. Today he is a college student with a brilliant mind, studying astrophysics. He got married last summer, and I can honestly say that I have never seen a happier couple.

This miracle happened because of decades of animal research. Thanks to this research, scientists and medical doctors know a lot about how lungs work. Some of the most important work was done by studying pig lungs – experiments that could not have been performed on humans. Thanks to medical research involving animals, scientists learned the crucial role that surfactants play, and they learned how to make the artificial version that saved our son’s life. Before trying it on human babies, scientists first tested it on prematurely born monkeys. All medical treatments undergo this critical phase of testing, ensuring that new treatments are safe before they are given to humans – or, more personally, our children.

In 1963, President John F Kennedy’s newborn son tragically died of the very same problem that nearly killed our son. At that time, medical science had not advanced enough to save him. Medical research, including research involving monkeys, is the only reason that our son survived. For us, this is not a political issue; it is the difference between life and death. Yet as I write this, countless other families are not so fortunate. At this very moment, thousands of parents are watching helplessly as their children suffer and die of diseases that we have yet to treat. For them, the horror that I felt for a few short days will become an emotional wound that never heals.

It’s normal in a democracy for well-meaning, patriotic people to disagree about many things. The need to spare our fellow human beings the indescribable horror of losing a loved one should not be one of them. If there is one thing that we all should agree on, it is that we must support medical research. Every single person reading these words should remember that one day it might be your life that hangs in the balance, or the life of someone that you love. It is my great hope that we continue to support medical research so that an effective treatment will be found before that day comes for your family.

Orsborn Paper: Neural Information Could Impact Brain-Computer Interfaces

Neuroscience core scientist Amy Orsborn published a new paper in the high-impact publication Nature Neuroscience in which she, as lead author, reports that, “Neural populations are dynamic but constrained,” as the title reads.

“Our brains evolved to help us rapidly learn new things. But anyone who has put in hours of practice to perfect their tennis serve, only to reach a plateau, can attest that our brains aren’t infinitely flexible,” the paper begins. “New work shows that patterns of neural activity over time — the temporal dynamics of neural populations — cannot change rapidly, suggesting that neural activity dynamics may both reflect and constrain how the brain performs computations.”

The findings, Dr Orsborn says, has the potential to impact how brain-computer interfaces are developed that could help provide people the use of artificial limbs.

In the study, Orsborn and her colleagues used micro- electrocorticography recordings in two male monkeys to map how their eye movements related to their arm movements. The upshot is the movements mapped in the brain across different regions, which advances our understanding of how our brain works when we do everyday tasks like reaching toward things we’re not looking directly at.

“These insights…reveal opportunities to leverage these signals to enhance future brain-computer interfaces,” she writes.

Dr Orsborn is one of three University of Washington faculty members who recently received fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Sloan Fellowships honor early-career researchers whose achievements mark them among the next generation of scientific leaders. Each fellow will receive $75,000 to apply toward research endeavors.

New Project Coordination Unit Created to Improve Processes, Outcomes

WaNPRC Director Deb Fuller has announced the formation of a new Project Coordination Unit (PCU) that will assists with managing both new and existing research studies and that aims to improve communication and collaboration within the center as well as with affiliates.

That unit has already started tweaking processes, including managing the way new projects start. You’ll find more information on the process here.

Collaboration can improve in ways that make work life more clear and less frenetic for researchers and veterinarians alike. While the PCU team is in the early stages of creating ways to improve processes, one first step is assigning a project coordinator to each research project who can provide transparency and assistance to researchers. That coordinator will shepherd researchers through the whole process to avoid things like surprise timelines or preventable delays.

The coordinator will also help research teams with accessing additional resources, including equipment and connections with both internal and external collaborators.

Not only will the PCU focus on improving the experience for researchers at the center and success of research studies, it aims to improve the wellbeing for the people working to take care of our animals. The pursuit of transparency can improve that experience by ensuring that research objectives, clinical best practices, and BMS goals all align.

Until the team can build out processes, researchers or others with requests or questions can contact the Project Coordination Unit at: u_wanprc_pcprojects@uw.edu

Chlamydia Research Offers Hope for Global Health Solution

Chlamydia is one of the most widespread infectious diseases in the world, and it is remarkably difficult to prevent its spread. However, Dr. Kevin Hybiske, microbiologist and professor at the University of Washington in infectious diseases, microbiology and global health, offers new hope in collaboration with the Washington National Primate Research Center.

In his lab, Dr. Hybiske is unraveling the complex ways this pathogen manipulates human cells to spread and evade the immune system. By understanding these mechanisms, his team aims to develop innovative therapies that could one day lead to better treatments and, ultimately, a reduction in the global health burden caused by this disease.

“Anecdotally, it’s probably one of the oldest bacterial pathogens of multicellular hosts,” Dr Hybiske said. “We study it because we still don’t understand the processes it uses to infect cells (and thus people), and we need to better understand that to so we can improve our ability to treat it.”

According to the World Health Organization, there were more than 128 million new cases of this sexually transmitted infection (STI) in 2020. And before COVID, it was the most reported infection in the United States.

While Chlamydia can be easily treated with antibiotics, there is no preventative vaccine, and people infected with it often have no symptoms. These factors contribute to the high prevalence of Chlamydia in the population, disproportionally affecting women and people with limited access to medical screenings or treatment. If left undiagnosed and untreated, chlamydia can cause serious problems, including pelvic inflammatory disease and an increased risk of infertility and ectopic pregnancy.

Dr Hybiske’s lab is interested in studying the key steps involved with the development of the disease, in part, by creating “mutants” of chlamydia to learn how one mutant does its job of entering and exiting cells so that it can propagate.

“A big part of my lab is in the business of making Chlamydia mutants,” he said. “We’re among the best in the world at that. We use this strategy to figure out what’s important” in the ways chlamydia infects and impacts humans.

“Microbiologists make mutants and figure out what processes they can no longer do and trace the facts to a gene that’s been disrupted. And that’s how you figure out how a pathogen does what it needs to do. Whether divide, or attach, or kill a host cell,” he said. “Until about 10 years ago people who studied chlamydia couldn’t do that.”

A major hurdle to studying this pathogen is that, unlike some other bacteria, chlamydia requires a mammalian host and cannot be grown in a dish. Which is where WaNPRC comes in.

“I have had long professional relationships with investigators at UW who had established the chlamydia infection model in macaques. They’re the best in the world at it,” he said.

“This research is the kind of thing that can only be done in the circumstances that exist at WaNPRC because of the combination of collaborators, and the teams who care for the monkeys,” he said. “This is the basic science we’ve only recently been able to do, and we’re among the best. We have small libraries of mutants that no one else has, and which we are eagerly hoping to test in relevant models. Our partnership with the WaNPRC allow us to experiment and test in ways that’s never been done.”

Hybiske and his team are keenly aware of the ethical considerations surrounding primate research and take steps to ensure that their work is responsible and beneficial. In a recent pilot study, Hybiske explored the vaccine potential of a new genetically attenuated mutant of Chlamydia and found that exposing monkeys to this vaccine strain was safe and led to immunity against challenge with a pathogenic Chlamydia strain. This type of responsible research is respectful of animal well-being and health and also has the potential to lead to promising advances for addressing human Chlamydia infections. He hopes to receive a grant to pursue this vaccine development further.

The World Health Organization is working to reduce the global burden of sexually transmitted infections like chlamydia, aiming for a 50% reduction in new cases of chlamydia by 2030. “My work slides into that,” Hybiske said. “I am not someone who normally thinks about vaccine design, my work has mostly been focused on figuring out Chlamydia’s deep molecular secrets.” And the secret could be connected to creating a mutant of chlamydia with special properties that could be beneficial in a vaccine.

“There’s a well-trod path to vaccine development, and we are at the beginning,” he said. “We’re doing the necessary next steps to see what happens. See where that takes it. Even if this strain doesn’t become a vaccine home run, we are poised to learn a great deal about the primate’s immune response to a Chlamydia vaccine, and this will certainly aid other people who are trying to make vaccines. If we are lucky, one of these vaccine candidates will work great and have an impact on public health.”

O’Connor Earns Faculty Appointment

Congratulations to Dr Megan O’Connor on her appointment as Assistant Professor to the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Washington!

Megan, a Core Scientist at WaNPRC in the Infectious Disease and Translational Medicine Unit (ITDM) and Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology at UW, uses preclinical models to study HIV viral co-infections, with a particular emphasis on how in vivo immunosuppression shapes viral pathogenesis, host immunity, the microbiome, and response to vaccination. Ultimately, her goal is to improve treatment and vaccine strategies for people living with HIV and other immunocompromised individuals. Through this research program, she aims to uncover new insights into immune system dynamics and inform the development of more effective therapeutic interventions for a broad range of infectious diseases.

Megan first became interested in academic research during a high school internship at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, under the mentorship of Drs. Steven Kohama and Martha Neuringer. “Having an independent laboratory is something I’ve been working towards since I started research 20 years ago! It’s very exciting!” she said. She is looking forward to growing her scientific program, expanding her collaborations and professional friendships, and is deeply committed to training the next generation of scientists.

She completed her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She found her passion for studying infectious diseases at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute (VGTI) at Oregon Health and Sciences University. And she received her PhD in Immunology, under the mentorship of Dr. William Green, at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, where she studied innate immune mechanisms contributing to LP-BM5 murine retroviral pathogenesis and immunodeficiency. She completed her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Deborah Fuller at the University of Washington and evaluated pre-clinical nucleic acid vaccines against HIV, ZIKV, HBV, and SARS-CoV-2.

She enjoys spending quality time with her husband and 2 young daughters, and in her free time you’ll find her cooking, battling it out in board games, or staying active with running and hiking adventures.

She will start her new role on Feb 1.

The Cost of Extremist Attacks on Scientific Research

One tool extremist groups use to disrupt scientific research is to misuse government transparency laws, like the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or local public records laws. This is done to exploit public access in a dishonest attempt to misrepresent research so extremists can generate controversy and use that to fuel their fundraising efforts—all while wasting taxpayer money and distracting from the important work being done. These tactics are an abuse of the system that is meant to promote openness, not stifle science.

One of the latest efforts to undermine the scientific community came in the form of 775 FOIA requests filed with the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in the first half of 2024, according to a report by Americans for Medical Progress (AMP). While the specific facilities targeted by these requests ranged from zoos to aquariums to agricultural operations, the issue is clear: extremists are weaponizing public records laws to create false narratives and fuel outrage.

At the Washington National Primate Research Center (WaNPRC), we are no strangers to this tactic. Since January of 2024 alone, we’ve received 23 public records requests (PRRs)—most of them from extremist groups. These groups take advantage of Washington state’s open records laws to request a wide range of documents – using the information not to better understand research, but to manipulate it, creating fodder for protests and fundraising campaigns.

Let me be clear: WaNPRC is committed to openness. We are overseen by an animal care and use committee that supports animal welfare and ensures we comply with federal regulations. All animal projects are reviewed and approved before they can begin. And we provide detailed reports on everything from our research protocols to any errors that may arise and how we address them. But there’s an obvious and troubling pattern to extremists’ requests: They consume valuable time and resources—time that could be better spent advancing science—while giving extremists ammunition that they use to misrepresent our work.

One telling example of these fishing expeditions came when a recent PRR requested every photo taken inside WaNPRC over a two-year period. Our staff painstakingly gathered over 700 images, because it’s the law, and because we have nothing to hide. But the reality is, these kinds of requests aren’t in the public interest. They’re nothing more than a tool for extremists to craft misleading narratives that misrepresent the work we do.

Take, for example, our tissue distribution program, which supports the 3Rs. Following humane euthanasia, this program serves as a vital resource, providing tissues to support multiple projects. The tissues from one animal can be used to answer questions regarding many different scientific questions. We strive to replace animal testing with alternative methods whenever possible, reduce the number of animals needed, and refine our techniques to minimize animal stress.

Without context, however, photos of these procedures can be easily misrepresented. For example, a photo of an animal technician holding a surgical instrument, or steadying an animal, could appear disturbing if viewed without context. So might a dentist photographed holding a needle or forceps, or a brain surgeon holding a drill. The fact is our work aims to improve both animal welfare and human health. But extremists don’t share this perspective. Instead, they use images out of context to generate shock value and rally their supporters—often for fundraising purposes.

This abuse of FOIA and public records laws doesn’t just waste time; it also wastes taxpayer money. Responding to these fishing expeditions requires significant staff time, and there’s often little to show for it other than more misinformation. And while these extremist groups claim to be working for the welfare of animals, their actions have the opposite effect: they disrupt scientific research, mislead the public, and hinder the development of life-saving treatments for both animals and people. They also make it harder to recruit the very people who take care of animals at the high standards of care we uphold.

One recent victory in defending scientific research against extremist misinformation came from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), which rejected a petition from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to list long-tailed macaques, also known as Cynomolgus macaque (LTM) under the Endangered Species Act.

In a decision issued in October, the USFWS found that PETA’s petition “did not present credible information to support impacts to LTM populations or the species as a whole.” This decision is a victory not just for scientific research but for the integrity of the system that allows for public input and transparency. The USFWS saw through PETA’s petition and understood that extremist groups are often more interested in promoting political agendas than in advancing genuine animal welfare or scientific progress. You can read the USFWS findings here and see for yourself.

Support Science, Not Extremism

At WaNPRC, we support openness. We believe in the public’s right to know how taxpayer dollars are spent and the importance of open government. It’s also clear that some extremist groups are abusing these laws to advance their own agendas, not to protect animals or promote scientific progress.

These groups create controversy where none exists, misrepresent our work, and ultimately do more harm than good. Their attacks do not stop science, but they do waste time, money, and resources that could be better spent advancing human health and animal welfare.

As long as fundraising remains their primary goal, these attacks will continue. But the more the public and policymakers recognize these tactics for what they are—misguided, costly, and ultimately counterproductive—the sooner we can create an environment where we can all work together toward common goals.

This Guest Director’s Blog is by Mark Walton, PhD. He is a senior research scientist at WaNPRC in the Neuroscience core. We welcomed his timely thoughts in a climate in which it’s valuable to understand the importance of animal research in advancing human and animal health.

This Guest Director’s Blog is by Mark Walton, PhD.
He is a senior research scientist at WaNPRC in the Neuroscience core. We welcomed his timely thoughts in a climate in which it’s valuable to understand the importance of animal research in advancing human and animal health.