MONKEY MODELS AND WOMEN'S HEALTH

This is a multi-categorical Program Project that takes advantage of many years of developing a female cynomolgus monkey model to better understand women's health, introduces some innovative approaches to nonhuman primate research, and strengthens the environment for research and research training. The research will be conducted at the Comparative Medicine Clinical Research Center (CMCRC), a unique resource of the Bowman Gray School of Medicine of Wake Forest University. The Program Project contains three separate experiments that encompass important new directions in comparative medicine research: * An investigation of naturally occurring osteoarthritis to better understand that disorder in women * A study of the effects of estrogen replacement therapy on regional adiposity and the relationships between intra-abdominal fat and risk factors for diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, and coronary artery atherosclerosis * A collaboration with researchers in Indonesia to investigate the effects of vitamin E supplementation versus estrogen replacement therapy on development of coronary artery atherosclerosis. Part of this study will be conducted in Indonesia and part at the CMCRC. In addition, the Program Project contains four cores that are devoted respectively to administration, comparative pathology, laboratory animal medicine, and biostatistics and data services. These cores comprise the infrastructure that enables the research projects to occur.