Yerkes Primate Center

The Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, is one of seven national primate research centers funded by the National Institutes of Health. It is known for its biomedical and behavioral studies with nonhuman primates.

Its 25-acre (10 ha) Main Station contains most of the center's biomedical research laboratories. The center also includes the 117-acre (47 ha) Yerkes Field Station near Lawrenceville, Georgia.

The center was established in 1930 by Robert Yerkes, in Orange Park, Florida, associated then with Yale University. Yerkes was a pioneering primatologist who specialized in comparative psychology.

In 1965, it relocated to its present location on the campus of Emory University.

The Field Station houses 3,400 animals, specializes in behavioral studies of primate social groups, and is located 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Atlanta, on 117 acres (47 ha) of wooded land.

The Living Links Center is a part of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center run by primatologist Frans De Waal. Located at the Yerkes Main Station on the Emory campus, it also does work at the Field Station.

Multidisciplinary medical research at the Yerkes research center is primarily aimed at development of vaccines and medical treatments. Research programs include cognitive development and decline, childhood visual defects, organ transplantation, the behavioral effects of hormone replacement therapy and social behaviors of primates. Yerkes researchers also are leading programs to better understand the aging process, pioneer organ transplant procedures and provide safer drugs to organ transplant recipients, determine the behavioral effects of hormone replacement therapy, prevent early onset vision disorders and shed light on human behavioral evolution. Researchers have had success creating transgenic rhesus macaque monkeys with Huntington's disease and hope to breed a second generation of macaques with the genetic disorder.

...
Wikipedia