Justin Porcano lives in California, so he has not directly heard the advertising campaign that has blanketed the airwaves in the Portland area calling for the closure of the Oregon National Primate Research Center.
However, he's alarmed because of what ending research could mean for his 7-year-old daughter, Lia. At the same time, he realizes many people have strong views on the center operated by Oregon Health & Science University, and that some will never accept the need for medical research involving animals.
"Having a daughter with a rare disease changes your perspective," he said.
See a media kit about the Oregon National Primate Research Center.
Porcano and his wife, Rosalyn, founded Save Sight Now to advocate for research to advance scientific understanding and ultimately develop therapies for kids like his daughter with Usher's syndrome, a hereditary condition that leads to progressive loss of hearing and eyesight. The family has raised support for the center's leading-edge research to develop gene therapies in a nonhuman primate model that closely mimics how the disease affects people.
The idea of stopping the research cold leaves him dumbfounded — and he's not alone.
In the face of the ongoing campaign to close the center — at a time of steep reductions in federal funding for medical research more broadly — scientists, clinicians, frontline workers and OHSU leaders are speaking out to defend the center's research as critical in improving health, alleviating human suffering and saving lives.
They say the public discourse against the center near Hillsboro misses two major dimensions:
- Care for people: The center generates groundbreaking discoveries to advance human health that aren't possible in alternatives like tissue cultures or simulation models. Research spans reproductive health and fertility; genetics; vaccine development; aging and neurodegenerative conditions.
- Care for animals: None of that research moves forward without justification of scientific value and the need for using animals. Each project is reviewed by an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee comprises 15 to 20 members including veterinarians, scientists, an individual whose primary expertise is not scientific (ethicist, lawyer, clergy) and a community representative not affiliated with OHSU. More than 500 staff members at the center work to ensure the entire colony of about 5,000 nonhuman primates are treated humanely, with oversight from the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare of the National Institutes of Health. Their work has led to innovations that improve the care of animals and advance human health.
Saving lives
"Most of us know someone who's alive today because of animal research," said Larry Sherman, Ph.D., a neuroscientist who studies demyelinating conditions like multiple sclerosis.
Sherman came to the center two decades ago because of the presence of a group of macaques that carry an inherited condition that closely mimics MS in people. His research has led to promising new techniques to protect myelin in the central nervous system; however, he acknowledges the discomfort many people feel about animal research.
"I want to minimize the number of animals we use in research, but I've seen the suffering that these diseases cause in people," he said. "If we can humanely use animals to answer these questions, my feeling is that we should."
As one of seven national primate research centers, the ONPRC houses a colony of about 5,000 nonhuman primates including rhesus and Japanese macaques. Most are housed in large outdoor settings with enrichment that is like what they experience in the wild. They're closely monitored by a large team of veterinarians and behaviorists over years and in some cases decades.
Scientists along with frontline staff form deep connections with animals and strive to provide exemplary care.
Skip Bohm, D.V.M., a longtime research veterinarian who became ONPRC director in August of 2023, believes that promoting the psychological wellbeing of animals is just as important to research outcomes as the study design.
"A lot of people are surprised when I tell them my goal is to stop the use of nonhuman primates in research," he said. "We're just not there yet."
In fact, the center has launched a pilot project to use alternatives to minimize the number of animals needed for research. However, right now it's not possible to completely replicate the complexity of a living system, especially in rhesus macaques and other nonhuman primates that are the closest model to people.
Advancing human health
Even though primates account for less than 1% of all animals used in research, it's their biological similarity to people that makes them critical in a host of discoveries ranging from the development of vaccines to effective new treatments for cancer, metabolic disease, neurodegenerative conditions and aspects of reproductive health among others.
In some cases, the research directly informs clinical guidance in a way that's not practically or ethically possible with people.
Jamie Lo, M.D., M.C.R., directly translates her research at the center to care for patients with high-risk pregnancies.
Recently, she and co-authors published research in nonhuman primates that definitively showed consuming THC, the psychoactive compound found in cannabis, while pregnant affects the lung development and function in their offspring.
She conducted the study because existing human observational data has only low to moderate evidence for harm. Given the limited safety data, she found that many patients are reluctant to give up using cannabis during pregnancy because it helps to reduce common prenatal symptoms such as nausea and pain.
In research with animals, it's possible to tightly control and measure exposures while eliminating the use of other substances that confound observational studies in people.
"You can't do that with a human study," she said. "This is the kind of information my patients need to understand the potential risks to make the best decisions for themselves and their baby. The goal is to avoid repeating what we saw happen with nicotine and alcohol use in pregnancy before we had strong evidence along with public health messaging."
She is sharing the information with patients, as well as health care professionals around the country who are also hungry for definitive evidence to bring to their patients.
"This kind of research resonates with patients, when you can show them data that it's changing the way the baby's lungs, brain and heart develop and function — increasing their risk for short- and long-term health complications like asthma, poor school performance and heart attacks.
"Putting the patients first really motivates me to find answers," she said, "and at this time it means we still need both human and animal research to improve medical care for all."
