Editorial of non-human primate research

The progress of biology and medicine over the past century has been greatly facilitated by research based on animal models that could be used for experimentation.Small animal models such as the nematode worm C.elegans and the fruit fly Drosophila played crucial roles in the development of genetics,embryology,and cell biology.The mouse has become the quintessential animal model in the past few decades,largely due to development of mouse lines that have acquired genetic homogeneity via inbreed-ing over many generations,and many transgenic mouse lines car-rying modified genetic makeup are also available.Mouse lines mimicking a variety of human diseases caused by genetic muta-tions are widely used for studying pathogenic mechanisms and for testing the efficacy of therapeutic treatments prior to human clinical trials.