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Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Mouse models have greatly advanced our understanding of CVD and genetics, and helped evaluate therapeutics. However, mice are not known to naturally acquire CVDs, and major differences in cardiac structure, function, and biochemistry between mice and humans limit the utility of mice for pre-clinical studies and pharmacological testing. Our lab has established the mouse lemur – the smallest and one of the most abundant non-human primates – as a new genetic model organism for primate-specific biology, and showed they are an especially valuable model for cardiovascular disease.