Monkeys are first primate DNA clones
TWO monkeys have become the first primates to be cloned from transferred DNA – the technique used to create Dolly The Sheep.
Long-tailed macaques Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua were born eight and six weeks ago respectively at a laboratory in China.
The aim was to pave the way to create groups of genetically uniform monkeys for research use.
British cloning expert Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, insisted: “The work is not a stepping-stone to obtaining human clones.”
Dolly made history 20 years ago after being cloned in Edinburgh from an adult cell. In 1999 a rhesus monkey was cloned through simpler embryo splitting that does not employ DNA transfer.