PLANNING COMMITTEE

SPEAKERS

Dr. David Abbott is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Senior Scientist at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison. He brings 40 years of experience employing rodent, primate and exotic species models of female reproductive endocrinology to determine pathophysiological mechanisms underlying a variety of reproductive health disorders commonly found in women. He led one of the first studies demonstrating social dominance regulation of ovulation in a female primate, the common marmoset, leading to a series of mechanistic studies delineating sensory, behavioral, and neuroendocrinological mechanisms that did not involve stress responses. Additional containment of female marmoset success was found to derive from avoidance of close kin mating and female-mediated infanticide. More recently, Dr. Abbott has explored the molecular underpinnings of female marmoset sexual behavior, to better inform therapeutic development aimed at ameliorating sexual dysfunction in women. Building on his knowledge of female primate ovarian cycles, he has collaborated to develop two rhesus macaque models for the highly prevalent infertility and diabetogenic polycystic ovary syndrome in women: fetal testosterone programming and naturally occurring hyperandrogenism. His current collaborations involve knockdown of estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) expression in the hypothalamus of adult female marmosets using viral vector technology. The aim is to establish ERα as the ER regulating metabolic, sexual, and pituitary-ovarian function in female primates, including women, and encourage better targeted therapeutics for regulation of weight, sexual desire, and ovulation.

Dr. Maria Adélia Borstelmann de Oliveira is a Full Professor at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco–UFRPE, where she has worked since 1984. She holds a bachelor's degree in UFRPE (1979), Specialist in Conservation and Management of Primates by the University of Brasilia–UNB (1985), master's in physiology and pharmacology by Federal University of Pernambuco–UFPE (1985) and PhD in experimental psychology from the University of São Paulo–USP (1998). Acted as Collaborating Researcher of Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA (1993–1994) and Molecular Ecology Laboratory, Queen Mary and Westfield School, London University, United Kingdom (1994–2000). She is a founding partner of the Pernambuco Association for the Defense of Nature–ASPAN (1979), where she held several management positions, including Presidency (1990–1994). In the Brazilian Society of Primatology (SBPr) she held a management position in different management positions, including the presidency (2012–2013). She has experience in the area of zoology, with emphasis on mammals, especially primates, on ecology, physiology, behavior, and conservation.

Dr. Monika Burns, DVM, DACLAM, is a Senior Research/Clinical Veterinarian with primary clinical responsibility for the common marmoset colony at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Burns joined the staff of the Division of Comparative Medicine at MIT following completion of the MIT DCM postdoctoral training program in comparative medicine. Prior to her training at MIT, she received her DVM degree from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University and completed her undergraduate work at Tufts University. Her clinical and research interests include primate reproductive biology and assisted reproductive technologies.

Dr. Nancy Caine earned a PhD in comparative psychology at the University of California, Davis, studying large social groups of macaques. She did postdoctoral work at the University of Colorado Medical Center before taking a faculty position at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. It was there that she began to work with callitrichid primates, doing controlled studies of their reactions to predatory threat. For the past 25 years, Dr. Caine has been at California State University, San Marcos, where she has continued her work with captive populations of marmosets housed in naturalistic environments, publishing studies on topics ranging from the function of color vision to group-mediated anti-predator behavior. She is interested in “translational ethology,” whereby our understanding of the evolved behavioral adaptations of primates can be brought to bear in captive management. Dr. Caine has served in leadership roles in both the American Society of Primatologists (President from 1998 to 2000) and the International Primatological Society (Secretary General from 2008 to 2018).

Dr. Ricardo del Rosario is a computational biologist at the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute. He leads the marmoset genome project, which involves the assembly of a new marmoset genome and whole genome sequencing of marmosets at MIT and the Broad Institute. The new marmoset genome assembly, its genome annotation, and whole genome sequences are needed by scientists working on genetic engineering in marmosets. Before he joined the Broad Institute, he worked as a research scientist at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS). One of his projects at GIS was to study the evolution of regulatory elements in primates. The marmoset genome was an important species that he used in performing a genome-wide screen for primate-specific constrained sequences. His work was included in the paper that published the marmoset reference genome. At GIS, he also developed a mathematical method to detect histone acetylation quantitative trait loci in human cohorts. These are SNPs that affect the acetylation levels of histones (as measured by H3K27ac ChIP-seq) and thus affect the activity of promoters or enhancers. His other experiences include a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Germany, where he created mathematical models of the bioenergetics of an archaeon Halobacterium salinarum, and an Associate Professor position in mathematics at the University of the Philippines. He obtained his PhD in applied mathematics from North Carolina State University.

Dr. Casey Fitz attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison as an undergraduate with a major in zoology and biological aspects of conservation. He went on to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Veterinary Medicine receiving a doctorate in veterinary medicine. Following graduation Dr. Fitz completed an ACLAM-approved postdoctoral residency in Laboratory Animal Medicine at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center and the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Dr. Fitz has worked with marmosets at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center for more than 15 years.

Dr. Yasuhiro Go is a Group leader of Cognitive Genomic Research Group and an Associate Professor of ExCELLS and the National Institute for Physiological Sciences. Dr. Go received a PhD from the Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, in 2003, and did postdoctoral researches at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies and Harvard University. In 2008, Dr. Go became a faculty member of the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University and moved to the current position of NINS in 2013. Current research interest includes primate genomics, evolutionary biology, human evolution, computational biology, neuroscience, and cognitive genomics. Especially, current studies focused on the population genomics in macaques and marmosets for identification of spontaneous mutant monkeys in neuropsychiatric-related genes toward establishing primate model for human neuropsychiatric diseases.

Dr. Anna Goodroe completed her bachelor's degree in biology and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University. She completed a Clinical Laboratory Animal Medicine Residency at Johns Hopkins University and was granted the title of diplomate from ACLAM. She has worked with common marmosets at both Johns Hopkins University and the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.

Dr. Takashi Inoue is Laboratory Head of Disease Model Animal Laboratory, Marmoset Research Department at CIEA. He has been working on veterinary care and support of managing daily husbandry and animal experiments in the marmoset facility of CIEA since 2007. He is a diplomate of the Japanese College of Laboratory Animal Medicine since 2015. He received PhD in Veterinary Medicine from the Graduate School of Hokkaido University in 2008.

Dr. Jessica Izzi, DVM, MLAS, DACLAM, is an Assistant Professor and the Director of Large Animal Medicine and Surgery within Research Animal Resources at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Izzi obtained her Master of Laboratory Animal Science degree from the Drexel University College of Medicine, received her DVM degree from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, and completed her postdoctoral training in laboratory animal medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to returning to a faculty position at Johns Hopkins, she spent 2 years at NIH as a clinical veterinarian in the Division of Veterinary Resources. She has 5 years of clinical and surgical experience with marmosets and serves as the primary clinical veterinarian for the common marmoset breeding and research colony at Johns Hopkins.

Kenton Kerns is an Assistant Curator at the Smithsonian National Zoo's Small Mammal House where he oversees the day-to-day running of the unit and cares for a diverse taxa of mammals. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in biology from American University and has a master's from George Mason University with a concentration in zoo and aquarium leadership. In 2013, he was awarded Professional of the Year Award from the American Association of Zoo Keepers (AAZK). He has published a number of articles of captive animal behavior in AAZK's Animal Keeper Forum. He is Vice-Chair of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Professional Development Committee, Vice-Chair of the Rodent Taxonomic Advisory Group, steering committee member of the New World Primate Taxonomic Advisory Group, studbook keeper for golden-headed lion tamarins, and a board member for Save the Golden Lion Tamarin.

Dr. Jan Langermans studied biology at the University of Utrecht, followed by a PhD in infectious diseases and immunology at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, where he worked on intracellular pathogens in vitro and in vivo in rodent models. In 1992, he became Assistant Professor at the Department of Infectious Diseases in Leiden until 1996 when he moved to BPRC in the Netherlands to work on vaccine development for tropical diseases using nonhuman primate models. In 2003, he became Director of the Experimental Animal facilities of the Animal Sciences Group of Wageningen UR in Lelystad, the Netherlands, and in 2007 Director of Biomedical Research at this institute. He was involved in the care and use of small laboratory animals (mice, guinea pigs, rats, and poultry) and large animals (e.g., pigs, cattle). In 2008, he moved back to BPRC to become Chairman of the Animal Science Department of this institute and in 2014, Deputy Director. He is responsible for the housing and care of the NHPs at the institute and related research with respect to veterinary care, animal behavior and well-being and is involved in various research topics, including behavioral research and neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr. Jon E. Levine, PhD, completed his BA at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, and his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Levine completed postdoctoral training at the Oregon National Primate Research Center and Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Levine joined the faculty at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in 1984, and remained there as Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Physiology until 2010. While on the faculty at Northwestern, Dr. Levine served as Director of the Program in Biological Sciences (1999–2006) and as Director of an NIH-sponsored Training Program in Reproductive Biology (1991–2010). He is currently the Director of the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center and Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. For the past 40 years, Dr. Levine has studied the neuroendocrine regulation of gonadotropin releasing hormone neurons. Dr. Levine's research has also focused on the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which ovarian steroids exert their physiological and behavioral effects in the brain, including the negative feedback mechanisms that maintain homeostatic control within the reproductive axis, as well as the positive feedback actions of steroids that trigger preovulatory gonadotropin surges. His recent work has made use of newly developed mutant mice and nonhuman primate models to analyze the cell signaling mechanisms that mediate negative and positive feedback actions of estradiol, the role of steroid hormone receptors and kisspeptin neurons in the timing of puberty, and as the effects of estrogens on energy homeostasis and body weight. Dr. Levine has served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology and as a member of the Steering Council for the Office of Research on Women's Health at NIH. He is an active member of numerous professional societies, including the Endocrine Society, Society for Neuroscience, and the Society for the Study of Reproduction.

Dr. Joanna Malukiewicz is an incoming European Marie Curie Fellow working among the German Primate Center, Gottigen, Germany, Instituto Adolfo Lutz, São Paulo, Brazil, and Federal University of Vale do São Francisco, Petrolina, Brazil. Having her research based in Brazil since 2011, she studies Callithrix evolutionary biology using genomic, genetic, metagenomic, and morphometric approaches to better understand (1) how hybridization and divergence between closely related species affect genome evolution and biodiversity; (2) the potential of hybrid primates and their parental species as arbovirus reservoirs; (3) and the microbiome of primate hybrids, relative to parental species. Dr. Malukiewicz earned her PhD in biology at Arizona State University where she received a Fulbright Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant in support of Callithrix research. She has held previous postdoctoral appointments at the Federal University of Viçosa via a Brazilian Science Without Borders grant and also at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University. She is the current Chair of the American Association of Anthropological Genetics Educational Committee.

Keith Mansfield is Executive Director and Global Lead of Molecular Pathology at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. Prior to joining Novartis, Mr. Mansfield was an Associate Professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School. He was PI of a number of NIH grants funded through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institute on Aging, and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and was a permanent member and Chair of the NIH Comparative Medicine Review Committee. During this time, he was Director of a T32 NIH training grant in comparative pathology and mentored a number of postgraduate veterinarians. His research was focused on the experimental pathology of infectious diseases and he is author/co-author on more than 200 peer-reviewed research publications. Since joining Novartis in 2011, he has led a molecular pathology laboratory utilizing precision models in drug discovery and development. He obtained his bachelor and DVM degrees from Cornell University and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Cornell University School of Veterinary Medicine. He trained in veterinary pathology at Harvard Medical School and is board certified in veterinary pathology by the American College of Veterinary Pathologists.

Steve M. Niemi is Director, Office of Animal Resources and Lecturer, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University Faculty of Arts Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts. With more than 35 years of experience in biomedical research and commercial biotechnology, he has held senior management positions in contract drug and device development, biotech start-ups in human gene therapy and food animal genomics, and laboratory animal care and assurance. Dr. Niemi is a Diplomate and past President of ACLAM, and has served on numerous boards and national task forces addressing medical product development and lab animal welfare. He earned an AB in biology from Harvard College, a DVM from Washington State University, and then received a U.S. Public Health Service National Research Service Award while a postdoctoral fellow at MIT. He later completed the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School. A collection of his essays, “Notes in the Category of C: Reflections on the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals,” was recently published by Elsevier.

Dr. Jean Patterson served as Chair of Virology and Immunology at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute from 1996–2015. She is a member of the design team that completed construction of a 36,000-square-foot laboratory building that holds 12 Biosafety Level 2 labs, 3 Biosafety Level 3 labs, and 1 Biosafety Level 4 lab. She is currently the Chair of BSL-4 Task Force. Dr. Patterson's main research interest is medical countermeasures for hemmorhagic fevers and animal models of Zika virus and she serves as Co-Chair of the National Primate Centers Working Group on Zika Virus. Dr. Patterson is a member of the National Scientific Advisory Board for Biosecurity.

Dr. Michael Power has been engaged in research on digestion, nutrition, and metabolism in marmosets and tamarins since his doctoral dissertation, and on milk composition since 1994. Over the past 20 years, he has been investigating the nutrient composition of milk from many species, ranging from Asian elephants to the pygmy marmoset. More recently, his research has expanded to include investigations of hormones and other bioactive molecules in milk and the milk microbiome. Dr. Power is the curator of the Milk Repository at the Smithsonian, which contains milk samples from more than 200 mammals. He is a co-PI on NIH-sponsored research into the relationships between diet, digestion, and health in the common marmoset.

Jeffrey Rogers, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Human Genome Sequencing Center and Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. Dr. Rogers received his PhD in anthropology from Yale University, and has worked throughout his career on the genetic and genomic analysis of nonhuman primates. Dr. Rogers has published 154 peer-reviewed scientific papers and serves as Chair of the Genetic and Genomics Working Group within the NIH National Primate Research Centers Consortium. He led the projects that produced the first genetic linkage maps for baboons and rhesus macaques. He was a senior member of the research teams that generated and published the reference genomes for the common marmoset, rhesus macaque, sooty mangabey, mouse lemur, and other primate species. His laboratory has sequenced and analyzed the genomes of more than 700 rhesus macaques, identifying more than 70 million single nucleotide variants, as well as small insertion-deletion polymorphisms and gene copy number variation. Dr. Rogers has applied this information regarding intra-species genetic variation in macaques and other primates to studies that identified novel genetic associations related to behavioral and physiological variation. He has also contributed to the discovery and development of several new primate models of human disease.

Dr. Corinna Ross is an Associate Professor of Biology at Texas A&M University San Antonio and an Associate Scientist at the Southwest National Primate Research Center at Texas Biomedical Research Institute. She is also an adjunct professor at the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies at the University of Texas Health, San Antonio. Her work integrates molecular, physiological and behavioral assessment techniques to explore mechanisms that influence developmental programming, health span and longevity in nonhuman primates. Dr. Ross has worked with marmosets for more than 20 years and has extensive experience designing phenotyping tools modified either from rodent assessments or from clinical geriatric assessments to assess marmoset activity, strength, feeding patterning, and cognitive function.

Adam Shriver is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities. Prior to Oxford, he worked at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of British Columbia. Mr. Shriver's research examines the intersection of ethics and cognitive science and he has written multiple articles about human well-being and animal welfare. In particular, Mr. Shriver's research has examined the significance of the dissociation between the affective and sensory components of pain for philosophical theories of ethics and well-being. To this end, he has written about the relationship between pain and pleasure, the legal and ethical questions that arise from the search for a neural signature of pain in humans, and the capacity for suffering across different species. He also has research examining the ethics of using genetic modifications in nonhuman animals. Previously, Mr. Shriver organized a workshop on neuroethics and animals, and he is currently co-editing a book on the topic.

Dr. Afonso Silva received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil, and his PhD in bioengineering from Carnegie Mellon University, where he worked on non-invasive MRI measurements of cerebral blood flow using the arterial spin labeling technique. He then went on to do postdoctoral training in the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research at the University of Minnesota, where he studied the temporal and spatial characteristics of functional brain hemodynamics under the supervision of Professor Seong-Gi Kim. Dr. Silva joined NINDS as a Staff Scientist in 1999, and became an investigator in 2004. His laboratory combines modern neuroimaging techniques (functional MRI and optical imaging) with electrophysiological recordings aimed at understanding the mechanisms of regulation of cerebral blood flow during normal and stimulation-induced brain activity.