Scientists in China have created the first monkeys cloned by the same process that produced Dolly the sheep more than 20 years ago, a breakthrough that could boost medical research into human diseases.
The two long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) named Hua Hua and Zhong Zhong were born at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai, and are the fruits of years of research into a cloning technique called, “somatic cell nuclear transfer.”
Macaque monkeys looking at a man’s camera during snowfall at Wulongkou Nature Reserve in Jiyuan in China’s central Henan province, January 6, 2018. (AFP Photo/China OUT)
“The barrier has been broken by this work,” co-author Muming Poo, director of the Institute of Neuroscience of CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, says.
Until now, the technique has been used to clone more than 20 different animal species, including dogs, pigs and cats, but primates have proven particularly difficult.
— AFP
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