Dr. Nelly Golarz de Bourne, histologist at the Yerkes Center, is conducting NASA studies on the monkey colony in collaboration with Dr. Geoffrey H. Bourne, Yerkes Center director. Their records go back at least 10 years, and include information pertaining to breeding and diseases of the animals. “We can now go back and look at slides of animals that died to see whether any of them might have had any of the more subtle changes of cystic fibrosis,” Dr. McClure explained.
“This discovery has made us aware that these animals can have the disease, so we can make an all-out search for new cases, both in the past and future. If we can breed a supply of animals with cystic fibrosis, using the parents, siblings, or other relatives of the one that had the disease, this will be a great boon to researchers.”
Up to now, research efforts toward understanding and curing cystic fibrosis have been severely hampered by lack of an animal model.
“We are very fortunate that the rhesus monkey is the animal model that was found by Dr. Wallach, because more is known about this animal than about any other nonhuman primate,” Dr. McClure said. “They are also available for research in fairly large quantities.”
Dr. James A. Peters, medical director of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, which has its headquarters in Atlanta, commented: “We eagerly await the results of Dr. Wallach’s studies because of the importance of an animal model to both basic and clinical research on cystic fibrosis.”
He noted that Dr. Wallach will participate in a May 25-26 workshop in Bethesda, MD., on the animal model for the study of cystic fibrosis, which will be jointly sponsored by the U.S. National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism, and Digestive Disease and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
