Development and Maintenance of a Non-Human Primate Tissue Bank

The National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) intends to re-compete a requirement currently being performed by the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center (NPRC), University of Wisconsin-Madison, under NIDA Contract HHSN271201800022C. This procurement is being competed under full and open competitive procedures under NAICS 541715. It is anticipated that a single cost reimbursement (CR) type contract will be awarded for a 1-year period of performance beginning on or about September 30, 2023, with 4 option years. The anticipated level of effort is approximately 0.35 FTE in year 1 and 0.35 FTE per year in years 2-5.  The objective of this contract is to acquire, archive, and distribute excess tissue from non-human primates (NHPs) that are being euthanized for research or humane purposes at institutions around the country. Tissue will be in part flash-frozen, in part embedded and frozen in optimal cutting temperature (OCT) medium without fixation, and in part fixed and embedded in paraffin, to allow their downstream application in a wide-range of molecular and histochemical techniques. Clinical information, including but not limited to blood and urine analysis will also be collected, stored in a database, linked to the tissues from the same animal in the bank, and submitted to the NIA Primate Aging Database (PAD).

The National Institute on Aging’s Aged Non-Human Primate Tissue Bank (NHP TB) archives and distributes excess tissue from NHPs that are being euthanized for research or humane purposes. The NHP TB makes available to researchers investigating aging a unique resource of NHP tissues to test hypotheses in a model closely related to humans. With its repository, the NHP TB contributes to reducing the number of NHPs used by the research community since multiple investigators can access tissues from the same animal. Furthermore, investigators wishing to study aging in NHP do not have to incur the expense of obtaining and housing the animals. This is a particularly important aspect of this resource, as the supply of NHPs is limited and costly. The tissues are collected under well-defined and standardized protocols to ensure their integrity and quality. Clinical information about the source animals is also made available. The NHP TB currently stores tissues from more than 250 geriatric donors and more than 130 control young donors from seven NHP species, including macaques, marmosets, tamarin, baboons, and green monkeys.