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Scientists once shied away from naming research animals, and many of the millions of mice and rats used in U.S. research today go nameless, except for special individuals. But a look at ​many facilities suggests that most of the ​other ​891,161 ​U.S. ​research animals ​have proper names​, including nonhuman primates, dogs, pigs, rabbits, cats, and sheep​.

A new study shows that gene editing using CRISPR/Cas9 technology can work in rhesus monkey embryos. The results, published in the current issue of Human Molecular Genetics, open the door for pursuing gene editing in nonhuman primates as models for new therapies, including pharmacological, gene-, and stem cell-based therapies, says Keith Latham, animal science professor at Michigan State University and lead author of the study.

Normally, male squirrel monkeys can't distinguish between red and green hues-they're what is called color-blind in humans. The South American Saimiri genus lacks a gene that allows color-sensitive cells in the eye, called cones, to differentiate red and green from gray. To these animals, other colors, such as blue, brown and orange, appear faded. But Sam was one of two males in the experimental group of a groundbreaking 2009 ophthalmological study conducted at the Washington National Primate Research Center in Seattle. Husband-and-wife vision researchers Jay and Maureen Neitz injected a viral vector behind the retinas, the part of the eye that responds to color, of Sam and his simian lab partner, Dalton. The virus contained the genetic code in human eyes for red pigment, giving the monkeys an extra class of cone photoreceptor.

WASHINGTON - The National Institutes of Health is sending its last remaining research chimpanzees into retirement - as soon as a federal sanctuary has room for them. The government already had declared that the use of humans' closest relative as a test subject was coming to an end. In 2013, the NIH said it would retire most of the several hundred government-owned chimps still living at research laboratories. But it set aside 50 animals to be on standby just in case they still were needed for a public-health emergency or some other extreme situation. Wednesday, the agency said those chimps' lab days are over, too.