Primatological Studies by Medicine Nobel Laureates

Primatology studies of the past 140 years can be tentatively categorized into three distinct periods-classical (1876-1930), ascendant (1931-1981) and restrictive (since 1982). We define a primatologist as one who has published research conducted on nonhuman primates in peer-reviewed science journals. From this definition, among the total of 207 Nobel laureates of medicine (from 1901 to 2014), we identified 14 as primatologists. We also identified seven more Nobel laureates of medicine who had occasionally reported research on nonhuman primates. If Charles Sherrington was the most influential medical primatologist in the first half of the 20th century, then Carleton Gajdusek was the most prolific medical primatologist in the second half of the 20th century.