Alarm over the monkey clones created in lab
MONKEYS have been cloned by scientists in the same way Dolly the Sheep was created, raising fears human cloning is a step closer.
Genetically identical long-tailed macaques Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua were created by removing the nucleus from an egg and replacing it with another.
The egg then develops into a clone of whatever animal donated the new nucleus.
The method was used 20 years ago by Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute to create Dolly the Sheep.
The Chinese monkeys are now eight and six weeks old.
Qiang Sun of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai told the journal Cell: “This will generate real models not just for genetically based brain diseases but also cancer, immune, or metabolic disorders and allow us to test the efficacy of the drugs before use.”
A colleague said: “We are very aware that using non-human primates depends on scientists following very strict ethical standards.”
But last night, Dr David King, director of the lobby group Human Genetics Alert, said: “We are concerned that this is a stepping stone to the creation of human clones.
“Those with enough financial resources and the ambition to be the first to create a cloned child are likely to try. There would undoubtedly be a market.”
He called for an international ban on cloning humans.
Professor Darren Griffin, of the University of Kent, said critics might be “evoking the slippery slope argument of this being one step closer to human cloning”. He added: “The benefits of this approach, however, are clear. A primate model with a known and uniform genetic background would be very useful in the study, understanding and ultimately treatment, of human diseases.”
The first non-human primate clone was a rhesus monkey in 1999 but it was created by a simpler method of embryo splitting.