Dr. Fred Wang, interim director of Harvard Medical Schools New England Primate Research Center, has stepped down, a Harvard Medical School spokesperson confirmed this morning.

Wangs departure comes shortly after the school announced it will suspend new experiments at the center in the wake of the death of a cottontop tamarin monkey at the facility Sunday.

That death was the third death at the center since October 2011 and the fourth death there in the last 21 months.

Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey Flier called the deaths absolutely unacceptable, deeply regrettable and personally disturbing to me in a strongly worded statement this week, and vowed to take aggressive action to resolve systems, processes and human errors at the facility.

When I learned of the most recent incident on Sunday, I immediately halted all new research protocols and new research on existing protocols at the (New England Primate Research Center), Flier wrote. The goal of this action is to provide time for our personnel to create and implement a corrective action plan.

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