[K-SCIENCE] New Primate Resource Center

South Korea has officially opened its largest primate resource center capable of breeding up to 3,000 monkeys used as test subjects for new medicines.

This is an arena with a diameter of 15 meters.

Ten 70-centimeter-tall monkeys are living in a group here.

The primates will be growing in environments which are very close to the state of nature in the new center operated by the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience & Biotechnology.

Humans and monkeys have a genetic similarity of 94 percent, so there is a high possibility that medicines which are effective for monkeys could be effective for humans.

Accordingly, experiments using primates ahead of human clinical testing are essential in the process of the development of new medicines.

The country uses some 650 monkeys in the development of new medicines and for biomedical researches every year, and all of them have been imported.

The new center is to effectively solve the imbalance between supply and demand of primate resources.


[Kim Ji-Su, director, Primate Resource Center, KRIBB]
"We've established the resource center to supply such primates (laboratory monkeys). The center is aimed to stably supply domestically-bred primates, in a bid to cope with the global trend to weaponize resources."


Built on a site of 73,424 square meters in the country's southwestern city of Jeongeup, the primate resource center currently has more than 1,000 primates. It plans to increase the number of monkeys to 3,000 by 2025.

The resource center plans to supply 50 primates that are born and raised in the center to local institutions in 2022 and more than half of primates used in local labs will be supplied by the resource center by 2025.