Scientists Clone Monkeys
Ever wondered when scientist would finally be able to clone animals or humans? Well on January 25, 2018 a group of scientist were able to clone monkeys in China. The monkeys were called Zhong-Zhong and Hua Hua, the first mammals to be cloned using the same kind of technique that made Dolly the sheep two decades ago.
They used a technique called somatic cell transfer or SCNT. The scientists use this technique to remake the unfertilized egg cell. Carefully removing the egg’s nucleus which contains the genetic information and replaced with a nucleus from another cell. The cell then would start to develop into an embryo of substituted mother. Making the cell bundle up making more genetically matched animals. This is one more step closer to cloning human beings. Making cells bundle up means there will be genetically matched animals; this is one more step closer to cloning human beings. Though Muming Poo, a co-author of the macaque study, has stated “We have no plans to clone humans, and social ethics would by no means allow that practice.” (Macaques is a monkey).” Only reason, they performed this experiment on monkeys was because the similarities between humans and monkeys.
Even though, scientist refuse to clone humans, this experiment can help us get a better understanding and treatment on human brain diseases. Some of these disease include Alzheimer’s, Autism, Parkinson’s and Cancer. The way they would do this is very simple but also different from making a clone. Since the clones were created by somatic cells, the cell hasn’t fully developed yet, thus making it easier for scientist to destroy the human embryos in order to treat the disease. But many disagree with this, because the embryonic stem cells can only be obtained by human embryos. Their success rate was extremely low and the technique works only when nuclei were transferred from fetal cells. The problem was that it took about 127 eggs to produce two living macaque births.
Especially for the people who work at Ethical Treatment of Animals strongly disagree with this. Kathy Guillermo, A PETA Senior Vice President, said “ It’s a waste of lives, time and money — and the suffering that such experiments cause is unimaginable.” This is also very true because cloning has a failure of at least 90 percent, so it would be a waste to use another monkey when there is a chance for it to die. Even with all of these consequences the idea of being able to clone animals and being able to treat difficult diseases is a big step for humanity. As time passes by hopefully the percentage for failure would decrease significantly, as well as being able to clone humans in the future.