Rhesus Monkey Successfully Candidates For The First Time: Steps Forward In Primata Research

More than a quarter century since Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be cloned. Now, for the first time, scientists have managed to clone the rhesus monkey (Maca Awaltta), a primate species known for its closeness to humans.

Experts in China use somatic cells other than sperm cells and eggs from a rhesus monkey to create identical genetic copies.

The clone is 'healthy' and has survived for more than two years since its birth in Beijing, in contrast to previous attempts to clone this species.

However, experts still reject 'un justifiable human cloning,' because it still has too many ethical and safety considerations.

This rhesus monkey clone was made using a technique known as the solar cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) by Qiang Sun and his colleagues at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

The Rhesus monkey is an interesting research material because of its anatomy and physiological proximity to humans and has been widely used in human health research.

"What is striking is that no rhesus monkeys have been cloned through the somatic cell nuclear transfer so far," experts said in their paper, published today in Nature Communications.

"We report the successful cloning of healthy male rhesus monkeys... and introduce a promising strategy for excellent cloning," they said.

SCNT techniques take somatic cells, such as skin cells, and move their DNA to egg cells with removed egg cores.

Somatic cells contain genetic information about how an organism is built, but cannot provide a new life to organisms, which is why this technique involves DNA transfer to egg cells.

If the transfer is successful, this process will lead to complete reprogrammation of genetic ingredients in the core of the cell and allow eggs to start splitting and forming cloned embryos, which are equipped with a healthy placenta for growth.