page_title: Chimpanzee
section_title: Use in research
hierarchical_section_title: Chimpanzee / Relations with humans / Use in research
caption_attribution_description: English: A three-year-old chimpanzee, named Ham, in the biopack couch for the MR-2 suborbital test flight. On January 31, 1961, a Mercury-Redstone launch from Cape Canaveral carried the chimpanzee "Ham" over 640 kilometers (400&#160;mi) down range in an arching trajectory that reached a peak of 254 kilometers (158&#160;mi) above the Earth. The mission was successful and Ham performed his lever-pulling task well in response to the flashing light. NASA used chimpanzees and other primates to test the Mercury capsule before launching the first American astronaut Alan Shepard in May 1961. The successful flight and recovery confirmed the soundness of the Mercury-Redstone systems.
context_page_description: The chimpanzee, also known as the common chimpanzee, robust chimpanzee, or simply chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. The chimpanzee and the closely related bonobo are classified in the genus Pan. Evidence from fossils and DNA sequencing shows that Pan is a sister taxon to the human lineage and is humans' closest living relative.
  The chimpanzee is covered in coarse black hair, but has a bare face, fingers, toes, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet. It is larger and more robust than the bonobo, weighing 40–70 kg for males and 27–50 kg for females and standing 100 to 150 cm. Its gestation period is eight months. The infant is weaned at about three years old, but usually maintains a close relationship with its mother for several years more. The chimpanzee lives in groups that range in size from 15 to 150 members, although individuals travel and forage in much smaller groups during the day. The species lives in a strict male-dominated hierarchy, where disputes are generally settled without the need for violence.
context_section_description: Hundreds of chimpanzees have been kept in laboratories for research. Most such laboratories either conduct or make the animals available for invasive research, defined as "inoculation with an infectious agent, surgery or biopsy conducted for the sake of research and not for the sake of the chimpanzee, and/or drug testing". Research chimpanzees tend to be used repeatedly over decades for up to 40 years, unlike the pattern of use of most laboratory animals. Two federally funded American laboratories use chimps: the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Southwest National Primate Center in San Antonio, Texas. Five hundred chimps have been retired from laboratory use in the U.S. and live in animal sanctuaries in the U.S. or Canada.
  A five-year moratorium was imposed by the US National Institutes of Health in 1996, because too many chimps had been bred for HIV research, and it has been extended annually since 2001. With the publication of the chimpanzee genome, plans to increase the use of chimps in America were reportedly increasing in 2006, some scientists arguing that the federal moratorium on breeding chimps for research should be lifted.
  Other researchers argue that chimps either should not be used in research, or should be treated differently, for instance with legal status as persons. Pascal Gagneux, an evolutionary biologist and primate expert at the University of California, San Diego, argues, given chimpanzees' sense of self, tool use, and genetic similarity to human beings, studies using chimps should follow the ethical guidelines used for human subjects unable to give consent. A recent study suggests chimpanzees which are retired from labs exhibit a form of posttraumatic stress disorder. Stuart Zola, director of the Yerkes laboratory, disagrees. He told National Geographic: "I don't think we should make a distinction between our obligation to treat humanely any species, whether it's a rat or a monkey or a chimpanzee. No matter how much we may wish it, chimps are not human."
  Only one European laboratory, the Biomedical Primate Research Centre in Rijswijk, the Netherlands, used chimpanzees in research. It formerly held 108 chimpanzees among 1,300 non-human primates. The Dutch ministry of science decided to phase out research at the centre from 2001. Trials already under way were however allowed to run their course.
  Chimpanzees including the female Ai have been studied at the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University, Japan, formerly directed by Tetsuro Matsuzawa, since 1978. Some 12 chimpanzees are currently held at the facility.
caption: Ham the Astrochimp before being inserted into the Mercury-Redstone 2 capsule in 1961. He survived the suborbital flight.[134]
exif: {}