First macaques cloned in China
On Wednesday, January 24th, China announced that some weeks ago was the first time that monkeys had been ever cloned, in a laboratory of Beijing.
The cloned monkeys are Zhong Zhong, now eight weeks old, and Hua Hua now six weeks old. Now they are being bottle-fed and are growing normally. Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua are the results of 79 attempts. Two other monkeys were initially cloned from a different type of cell but failed to survive.
These little macaques of long tail were cloned by the same method by which the famous sheep Dolly was cloned 20 years ago: by somatic cell nuclear transfer.
The researchers expect more macaque clones to be born over the coming months.
"The cloned monkeys will be useful as a model for studying diseases with a genetic basis, including some cancers, metabolic and immune disorders. There are a lot of questions about primate biology that can be studied by having this additional model," said Qiang Sun of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience.
Many critics about the ethics of this project have been arising; one of the most controversial are concerning how close we are to human clonation
Reforma.com. (2018). Clonan primeros macacos en China. [online] Available at: https://www.reforma.com/aplicacioneslibre/preacceso/articulo/default.aspx?id=1307191&sc=758&urlredirect=https://www.reforma.com/aplicaciones/articulo/default.aspx?id=1307191&sc=758 [Accessed 24 Jan. 2018].
BBC News. (2018). First monkey clones created in the lab. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-42809445 [Accessed 24 Jan. 2018].
