News Release

Duke commits to enhance Primate Center

Grant and Award Announcement

Duke University

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University officials have announced that the Duke University Primate Center has made sufficient progress toward improving its research and educational programs that the university will commit to maintaining and enhancing the center for the foreseeable future. The center is the world's only research and education center devoted to prosimians and comprises the world's largest collection of endangered primates.

Provost Peter Lange said that he and Vice Provost for Research James Siedow have agreed the university will invest more than $4 million during the next few years to continue sustaining the facility and improving its programs.

In 2001, following reviews of the Primate Center's programs that called for the center to strengthen its role in the university's teaching and research programs, Lange appointed as director William Hylander, professor of biological anthropology and anatomy, for a period of three years. Hylander -- whose own research involves the evolution of the primate face and chewing -- was charged with developing a long-term strategic plan to enhance the center's teaching and research contributions to the university's mission.

According to Lange, the university will recruit a leading primate researcher to permanently direct the center and enhance its research, education and conservation missions. The director will hold a faculty appointment in the Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy and will likely be a scientist with a particular interest in prosimian research, he said. Among the new director's responsibilities will be to lead a major fund-raising campaign to endow the center's programs and operations, said Lange.

The university currently supports about $800,000 a year of the center's annual $1.1 million operating budget, with the rest coming from the National Science Foundation.

"When we began our review in 2001 of the Primate Center's role at the university, we were concerned it was not fulfilling its promise as a source of significant research advances and as a teaching resource for our students," said Lange. "Since then, under the strong leadership of Professor Hylander, the center has made very good progress, striking a more productive balance among its research, education and conservation missions. Based on the progress made to date and our commitment to strengthen the Primate Center, we believe it can become a world-class facility that matches the quality of Duke's other major research centers."

Strengthening the university's faculty, and its research and teaching programs, are major priorities of "Building on Excellence" the university's long-range academic plan, which was approved by the university's Board of Trustees in 2001.

Siedow said the Primate Center has made "significant progress" toward its goal of balancing the center's missions. "Research projects have increased three-fold from 2000 to 2002, and we have been pleased to see a significant increase in independent student research associated with the Primate Center," Siedow said. "We believe these promising trends will continue, and they warrant the university's long-term commitment."

Officials also noted that more Duke departments from around the campus are capitalizing on the Primate Center as a teaching and educational resource. For example, the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences is using the Primate Center in a number of its courses as a resource for studying primate behavior, and the Department of Romance Languages is drawing on the center to teach students about the natural history of Madagascar.

Siedow also cited the 2001 renewal of the center's three-year, $1.1 million facilities grant from the National Science Foundation and the development of a strong external scientific advisory committee to guide its research programs. The committee includes leading researchers from California Institute of Technology, Yale University and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

In addition, the center has formed an internal committee to encourage new research initiatives and created a staff position to assist in developing research applications. Research capabilities have been enhanced by new equipment that has been made available to all scientists using the center.

Research projects now under way, all of which are conducted to ensure the safety of the animals, include studies of the unique locomotion, feeding adaptations, sensory capabilities and metabolisms of lemur species.

Officials said that future studies will focus on the unique history by which lemurs and other prosimians evolved from an ancient common ancestor in parallel with anthropoids, the primate group that includes monkeys, apes and humans. Sometimes called "living fossils," prosimians offer insight into the earliest origins of primates, including humans, and thus provide a resource for comparative studies with anthropoids of evolutionary, biological, physiological, genomic and behavioral structures and processes.

Other recent changes at the center include the relocation of its Division of Fossil Primates to a more spacious facility on Broad Street, adjacent to Duke's East Campus. That facility will continue to be led by division director Elwyn Simons, who is a James B. Duke Professor and professor of biological anthropology and anatomy. The fossil collection constitutes one of the world's leading resources for studying the early evolution of primates.

Lange said, "We are confident that the Primate Center's new director will have a strong foundation on which to build, thanks to the good work of Professor Hylander and many others who have worked so hard to improve the teaching and research programs at the Primate Center and to reach the ambitions we all share for it. We're also pleased the center can continue its excellent public education program, teaching youngsters, university students and the public why it's so important to conserve these endangered animals.

Last year, more than 11,000 visitors took guided tours of the center. They included more than 1,000 non-Duke college students, who visited the center as part of classes at their home institutions, and nearly 4,000 elementary and high school students from throughout North Carolina.

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