National Resource Center for Non-Human Primates

The establishment of the National Resource Center for Non-Human Primates (NRCNHP) was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China and the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China in June 2019, relying on the Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and jointly constructed with the Institute of Medical Biology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The Center, which consisted of four modules germplasm resource bank, biobank, animal models of disease bank and database for non-human primates, closely focuses on national strategic needs, with the goal of “building an international leading Non-Human Primates National Resource Center” and the guiding principles of “optimization, integration, sharing and efficiency”. The Center collects, integrates and optimizes non-human primates and tree shrews germplasm resources and carries out sharing services in seven aspects: resource collection and preservation, scientific and technological resource remittance, resource excavation and application, public sharing and services, research and development of common technologies and resource development, monitoring of domestic and international dynamics, and domestic and international exchanges and cooperation.

By the end of 2023, the Center now holds more than 10,000 non-human primates and tree shrews of eight species: rhesus macaque, pig-tailed monkey, crab-eating monkey, assamese monkey, cotton-eared Marmoset, rhinopithecus bieti, stump-tailed macaque, boddaert; more than 41,000 biological samples such as organs, tissues, cells, and nucleic acids; 24 animal models for diseases such as AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, depression, and COVID-19 pandemic Disease; and more than 128,000 pieces of data including basic information, physiology, biochemistry, genetics, phenotyping, omics, imaging, and other data. Meanwhile, NRCNHP has established the rhesus macaque MRI database, rhesus macaque and crab-eating macaque blood biochemistry and blood routine database, and the whole genome database of tree shrew.   

The Center has a high-level talent team of 73 people, including 10 comrades with senior titles, 7 comrades with vice-senior titles, 3 recipients of the National Outstanding Young Scientist Fund, 1 New Cornerstone Investigator Program researcher, 2 recipients of the Youth Thousand Talent Programme, 1 recipient of the National Ten Million Talent Project, 1 key technological talent, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and 2 technological innovation talent of Yunnan Province.

Since the establishment of the Center, it has been making efforts to carry out research on the preservation and sustainable use of strategic resources of non-human primates and tree shrews, and collecting, integrating and optimizing the germplasm resources of non-human primates and tree shrews in accordance with the decision-making and deployment of the national and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The openness-and-sharing of these resources in a scientific and orderly manner has supported the achievement of a number of high-level research results, and achieved significant social and economic benefits, and made an important contribution to the development of the country and the local community. The Center actively undertakes many major scientific research tasks, such as the National Key Research and Development Programme, the Biological Resources Programme, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the National Natural Science Foundation.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the Center will focus on the preservation, development and utilization of strategic resources of non-human primates and tree shrews, improve the quality of germplasm resources and the level of technical services, and effectively support the strategic needs of the people's health, the biomedical industry, and the research of life sciences, so as to build it into an international leading resource center.