Monkeys Cloned
Five monkeys have been cloned from a gene-edited macaque with circadian rhythm disorders in China, the first time multiple monkeys have been cloned from a gene-edited monkey for biomedical research.
Scientists made the announcement on January 24, with two articles published in Nationalscience Review , a top Chinese journal in English. The monkeys were cloned in Shanghai at the Institute of Neuroscience of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Researchers said the advance means that a population of customized gene-edited monkey models with uniform genetic background will be available for biomedical research.
Disorders of circadian rhythm are associated with many human diseases, including sleep disorders, depression, diabetes, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s.
The cloned monkeys, closer to humans in physiology, make better models for research on disease pathogenesis and potential therapeutic treatments.
In order to create an ideal donor monkey, researchers knocked out BMAL1, a core circadian regulatory transcription factor, using gene editing at the embryo stage.
They selected one of the geneedited monkeys with the most severe disease phenotypes as the donor and cloned five monkeys by somatic cell nuclear transfer, the same method used in the case of Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, the first cloned monkeys born in China at the end of 2017.
Different from Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, cloned by using fibroblasts from an aborted fetus, the new clones were made using a geneedited young adult male monkey.
Primary and middle school students and preschoolers are banned from riding school buses that are not registered by authorities, the circular said.
School bus drivers will face severe punishment if found speeding, overloading or driving off designated routes. Unregistered school buses will be seized.
The circular ordered relevant departments to conduct a thorough investigation of students’ means of commuting and keep an account of the models and plate numbers of school buses on a long-term basis.
Monitoring of private and unqualified kindergartens should be strengthened, and parents should be well informed, according to the