A UW-Madison committee approved research protocols last week that will allow Michele Basso to resume her research with non-human primates after her research abilities were suspended in February 2009.
Basso, who uses non-human primates to study brain conditions like Parkinson's and Huntington's disease, was suspended from research after she continued to violate animal care protocol after several warnings that date back as far as 2004.
According to Eric Sandgren, director of the UW-Madison Research Animal Resources Center, Basso's research showed problems with medical record-keeping on some of the animals. He said she was also cited with incorrectly storing or using samples that were meant to be reviewed by veterinary staff.
According to Chancellor Biddy Martin, the School of Medicine and Public Health Animal Care and Use Committee eventually took Basso's case to the All-Campus ACUC in 2008 after reaching a standstill in deciding the fate of her research privileges. This committee chose to suspend Basso's research privileges and research protocol in February 2009.
Sandgren said UW-Madison reinstated Basso's research privileges in October 2009, but she was still unable to conduct research until last week when the university approved her research protocols.
He said that such a long suspension from animal research privileges is rare and estimated there were only two other suspensions of similar length in the past six years.
Martin said, however, that she believes problems with animal research are inevitable because of the large size of UW-Madison's research enterprise.
""I don't think it is surprising in general that there will be problems because we've got 6,700 people working with animals on this campus, there will always be problems,"" she said.
This incident occurred on the heels of debate regarding the ethics of primate research at UW-Madison, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited UW-Madison with several animal care violations in a report released in December.
After the release of the USDA report, Martin called for an external review of UW-Madison's primate research. This report, released in January 2010, did not find UW-Madison guilty of any serious violations.
Martin said, however, she feels some of the problems surrounding primate research on campus would be resolved under provost Paul DeLuca's plan to restructure UW-Madison's graduate school, which would create a new dean position strictly in charge of overseeing UW-Madison's research.
