Stubbins Will Design New Research Center For Study of Primates

The Medical School's $2.5 million Primate Research Center in Marlboro and Southboro will be designed by Hugh Stubbins, the Cambridge architect who planned the Loeb Drama Center.

Construction will start this Fall, and the projected completion date is June, 1964. The National Heart Institute and the United States Public Health Service will donate $2.5 million for the vitally needed center.

The new Harvard facility will provide a research center for hospitals, universities, and medical schools in all parts of New England. Research subjects range from small tree shrews, used by William W. Howells, professor of Anthropology, to assorted chimpanzees used by various government space agencies.

No Government Work

Spite the fact that the $2.5 million grant was made by the U.S. Public Health Service, the Center will not do any direct testing work for the government according to Dr. Bernaid F. Trum, the Center's director. The Center will make its facilities available only to private investigators, but Trum indicated that some of these researchers "might be doing government work."

One of the first projects planned for the new center is a continuation of acute nutritional studies now going on at Harvard. Later work will involve neuropsychology and pathology and experimentation with viral deseases in monkeys.

Another major project will involve sociological studies to be conducted by the University's Department of Anthropology. The study will investigate the way small primates organize their lives.