News about the Genomics & Microbiology Research Lab

Let's talk about monkey blood!

When we have blood drawn at a doctor's office, it is evaluated as a snapshot of our health.  One thing the technicians look at is the number and types of cells found in our blood. Shifts from the "normal" range for any of these cells can indicate a problem, such as an infection.

As in the image of a blood slide here, our blood has red blood cells (donut shapes), which carry oxygen around our bodies, platelets (small dark dots), which help our blood clot when we get a cut, and white blood cells (larger cells with dark shapes), which are the protective cells of our immune system.

An ongoing project in the Genomics & Microbiology Research Lab is looking at blood from rhesus macaque monkeys like the one shown here.

We use the same techniques used to look at human blood to understand the health of these monkeys.

This is part of a larger project with collaborators around the world to compare this data with other information, such as behavior and DNA.

Did you know that you can participate in research in our lab? Check out our Monkey Health Explorer project at Zooniverse.org to help us evaluate the health of rhesus macaque monkeys by identifying cells in images of blood smears.