The Foundation of Life Science
Every breakthrough in human exploration of the mysteries of life is inseparable from animal research.
In 1897, Russian scientist Pavlov revealed the principle of "classical conditioned reflex" based on his dogs experiment and established the theory of advanced neural activity. In 1910, American scientist Morgan's fruit fly hybridization experiment opened the door of genetics to mankind. As the Covid-19 pandemic rages on, the research and development of relevant vaccines also largely depends on macaques, which are a close relative of humans……
Statistics show that, > 2/3 of the Nobel prizes in physiology or medicine are based on animal research.
Animal brain research can help us better explore the mysteries of the human brain, understand the mechanisms of brain development and aging, as well as the origin and evolution of life. At the same time, it can also open up an all-new "roadmap" for exploring the mechanisms behind such brain diseases as Alzheimer's disease, autism and depression, and provide more reference clues for developing new intervention methods and therapies.
The Macaques in Whopping Price
The Macaques in Whopping Price
The most ideal animal model for brain research is the macaque, which has a genetic similarity of 97.5% with humans. Research results obtained from macaques can be very effectively borrowed to humans. It can be said that using macaques to establish brain atlas and brain disease models is an essential method to link the basic and clinicial research.
As one species of macaques, cynomolgus macaques are most commonly used in scientific research for their faster reproduction speed, small size and low dosage. However, the accelerating R&D of new vaccines and new drugs worldwide has led to an explosive growth in the demand for experimental cynomolgus macaques, causing a supply shortage and rising prices. In 2020, one cynomolgus macaque could cost as high as ¥65,000. It became a national strategic reserve material over a period of time.
Constrained by the scarcity and whopping price of cynomolgus macaques, it is fairly difficult to establish a single disease model of a large cynomolgus macaque population. This makes it harder to support traditional "case-control" experimental research, thus greatly hindering the following research.
Standardized Model
Wang Zheng, Distinguished Guest Researcher at the Kunming Institute of Zoology and Senior Researcher at the Center of Excellence and Innovation for Brain Science and Intelligent Technology, and his team have introduced the standardized model research method in mathematical statistics. By only developing one standardized model of cynomolgus macaque brain atlas and using it as reference, it will be possible to detect the heterogeneity of the individual cynomolgus macaque disease model in a large healthy population.
In this way, only a small number of cynomolgus macaques is needed to effectively evaluate and study disease models, thus substantially reducing the sacrifice of model animals in the research process.
To construct a standardized model of cynomolgus macaques, researchers need to obtain a large quantity of MRI-based brain data of healthy wild-type macaques. Therefore, the Kunming Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and United Imaging Healthcare have jointly developed a macaque head stereotactic locator and dedicated 12-channel imaging coil, which fills the gap in research-use coils and can better adapt to the macaque head structure and markedly improve imaging accuracy. Based on United Imaging's high-performance 3T uMR 790 and other equipment, the Kunming Institute of Zoology has collected high-resolution MRI data from 162 healthy cynomolgus macaques aged 2-9 years and used the data to plot the brain atlas of cynomolgus macaques and established a standardized model.
Since their publication, the standard brain atlas template data of cynomolgus macaques have been provided free of charge for various research teams at Massachu-setts Institute of Technology, Max Planck Institute, Kunming University of Technology, Shanghai University of Science and Technology, the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University and the characteristic medical centers of the PLA Strategic Support Force. These data have been widely used to study the mechanisms of major human brain diseases, explore new targets for drug treatment and develop new neural intervention technologies.
Source: Lv Q, Yan M, Shen X, et al. Normative Analysis of Individual Brain Differences Based on a Population MRI-Based Atlas of Cynomolgus Macaques[J]. Cerebral Cortex, 2020(Suppl 1).
Since their publication, the standard brain atlas template data of cynomolgus macaques have been provided free of charge for various research teams at Massachu-setts Institute of Technology, Max Planck Institute, Kunming University of Technology, Shanghai University of Science and Technology, the Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University and the characteristic medical centers of the PLA Strategic Support Force. These data have been widely used to study the mechanisms of major human brain diseases, explore new targets for drug treatment and develop new neural intervention technologies.
Source: Lv Q, Yan M, Shen X, et al. Normative Analysis of Individual Brain Differences Based on a Population MRI-Based Atlas of Cynomolgus Macaques[J]. Cerebral Cortex, 2020(Suppl 1).