Jacob Negrey

JACOB D. NEGREY, then a graduate student at Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, was awarded funding in April 2017 to aid research on ‘Social Bonds and Immune Function in Wild Chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ),’ supervised by Dr. Cheryl D. Knott. Between January 2016 and July 2017, the grantee collected behavioral observations, urine samples, visual health assessments, and fecal temperatures from 80 adult chimpanzees at Ngogo in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Funding enabled analysis of urinary biomarkers of immune and metabolic activity in 661 urine samples at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, using a combination of enzyme immunoassays and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. By joining urinary hormone measurements with behavioral and epidemiological data, the research will assess hormonal mechanisms by which social behavior impacts immune activity. In particular, he will test whether social bond strength and social status predict variance in immune biomarker secretion.