[Editorial Note: The Transmitter is a neuroscience publication primarily invested in animal research. This article, while showing discomfort towards the direction primate research is heading in, does acknowledge the USA government’s commitment towards NAM, and the reality that animal research will eventually be a thing of the past.]
The Transmitter reports that the seven federally funded U.S. national primate research centers, originally intended to exist for a hundred years, are struggling to remain viable amid flatlined federal funding and mounting political pressure against animal research. A Congress-commissioned scientific committee concluded after the COVID-19 pandemic that a weakened nonhuman primate research field constitutes a national security risk and urged increased federal investment, yet that investment has not materialized. Meanwhile, federal agencies including the CDC, FDA, and NIH have announced plans to end or reduce primate and animal testing, and China is significantly expanding its own primate research infrastructure.
Key Highlights #
- The seven centers, hosted at universities in seven states, collectively house roughly 28,000 monkeys and 200 labs, including more than 60 neuroscience labs, and accounted for a quarter of research monkeys in the U.S. in 2025.
- Nonhuman primates make up only half a percent of animals used in research but have contributed to the COVID-19 vaccine, personalized gene therapies, and deep brain stimulation, according to the Congress-commissioned committee.
- Federal funding for the centers has remained relatively flat for nearly two decades; P51 base grants of roughly $7 to $14 million per center have not kept up with inflation, forcing host universities to offset accumulating deficits.
- HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated in December 2025 that major subagency heads within the department are deeply committed to ending animal experimentation; NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya said the agency was working to transition at least one primate center into an animal sanctuary.
- Oregon Health and Science University, after negotiating with NIH, opted to significantly reduce its colony size and stop selling animals to outside researchers; four other centers have dropped “primate” from their names.
- China pledged $746 million to its China Brain Project in 2022, including increased domestic monkey breeding, with single new facilities capable of holding up to 20,000 monkeys; China also launched an international macaque and marmoset brain mapping collaboration from which the U.S. is mostly excluded.
- Center directors are pursuing initiatives to reduce animal use, including AI behavior-tracking tools, noninvasive health monitors, 24/7 video monitoring combined with health records, and pooling the centers’ health records into a shared database, and they argue the centers’ extensive records make them well suited to validate new approach methodologies (NAMs).
Statements #
The primate centers in particular, and the primate research community in general, feels endangered at this point, and feels like their work is under a kind of scrutiny that we have not experienced in the past. Nobody knows how it’s going to play out.
- J. Anthony Movshon, professor of neural science and psychology, New York University
We’ve been leaders in this kind of research, and that’s now going to be compromised. If we don’t have nonhuman primates to make discoveries, we also don’t have them to train the next generation of scientists. We’re cutting off this pipeline of discovery, and the consequence of this is a disaster.
- Peter Strick, professor and chair of neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh
We’re working with the same dollars as we were 20 years ago, and the costs in the world are not the same. There’s no extra wiggle room to innovate and try new things.
- Corinna Ross, director, Southwest National Primate Research Center
China’s already been eating our lunch; they’re going to eat our dinner, too.
- Michael Platt, university professor of psychology, University of Pennsylvania
If we undo all of this infrastructure, we won’t be in a position to rebuild it.
- Corinna Ross, director, Southwest National Primate Research Center
About the Organizations #
The Transmitter is an editorially independent science publication covering neuroscience, including research methods, policy, and the scientific community.
The National Institutes of Health is the U.S. federal agency that funds the national primate research centers through P51 grants and is the world’s largest funder of biomedical research.
Rise for Animals is a nonprofit organization working to end the use of animals in laboratories through advocacy, policy engagement, and public education. Information for this news item was circulated by the organization.
Learn More #
U.S. National Primate Research Centers Face an Uncertain Future
Oregon Primate Research Center to Downsize Monkey Colony, Pivot to Non-Animal Models