Chinese successfully cloned monkeys, approaching the human clone

This is the first time in a history of a genetically close primate with a successful replication.

The long-tailed monkey named Trung Trung and Hoa Hoa was born 8 and 6 weeks ago in a laboratory in China. What is special is that these two monkeys are the first pair of primates born through DNA transfer, similar to the 1997 case.

Monkey Hoa Hoa was born 6 weeks ago.

The success of Chinese scientists marks a big advance in the field of cloning, but also raised many doubts about morality. Many experts believe that this technique can be used to duplicate people.

Scientists assert, the success of research will help them find ways to cure human diseases today. In 1999, a monkey named Tetra was born asexually but by a simpler method than embryos. The technique applied to the two Trung Trung and Hoa Hoa monkeys is the core cell transfer technology (SCNT).

After Dolly sheep was born in Scotland more than 20 years ago, many other mammals were born by SCNT. This method takes a central piece of DNA into the egg and nourishes it into an embryo. Species that have been cloned include sheep, pigs, dogs, cats, and mice.

The author of this work is Dr. Qiang Sun, director of the Primate Research Center in Shanghai. Mr. Sun hopes that serious diseases such as cancer will be cured in the near future by studying cloned primates.