A US study has discovered that African chimpanzees routinely consume alcohol naturally present in overripe fruit that, given the size of their bodies, would be equivalent to having two drinks a day, suggesting that human addiction to alcohol has an evolutionary root.

Representatives from PETA and Doctors Against Animal Experiments presented to the petition committee of the German Parliament on 1 December, calling for a phased EU-wide end to primate research.

A recent opinion article in The Transmitter by US neuroscientists Cory Miller, from the University of California, San Diego, J. Anthony Movshon, from New York University, and Doris Tsao, from the University of California, Berkeley, raised concerns over the recent policy changes in Europe and the US that would scale back animal research – including in primates.  

The Dutch Senate has approved the 2026 budget for Education and Science, including a controversial amendment that will end public funding for primate research at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre (BPRC) by 2030. Starting in 2026, the BPRC must redirect 40% of its subsidy to alternative research methods, increasing by 20% every year. 

Scientists in the US have discovered how the brain can recover from a distraction to return to the task at hand, in a study using monkeys.  

The first EU-Simia Japan meeting took place at CNRS headquarters in Paris on 27-28 October 2025, gathering over 100 scientists specialising in primate biomedical research. Japanese researchers presented work on immunology, development, neurodegenerative diseases and decision-making mechanisms, while European and North American colleagues shared progress in vaccine therapies and neuro-technologies. 

The New Democratic Party in Canada has launched a petition calling on the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to halt primate imports for biomedical research, based on a conflation of unproven allegations that could cost lives. While the petition is wrapped in animal conservation language, it conveniently ignores the millions of human lives saved by the very research it seeks to abolish. 

A prominent gene therapy company has announced a groundbreaking therapy for Huntington’s disease that slowed disease progression by 75% in human clinical trials.

Researchers in Japan have tested a new drug that provides powerful pain relief in mice and monkeys, without the dangers of opioids.  

Researchers across the globe wrote a position paper regarding the critical role of non-human primates (NHP) in advancing Parkinson’s disease and research on ageing.

Research from a global consortium has produced a cell atlas of the mouse lemur brain, revealing distinct brain cell features in primates....