Facts about monkey clones – macaques genetic alteration

Facts about monkey clones – Macaques genetic alteration – It seems monkey are a lot in the news lately Just after reports of a breed of Macaques in florida caused chaos to park visitors. In a new radical breakthrough, using the same procedure that gave us Dolly the sheep and human skin in the last twenty years.Using the latest technology and developments in medical science,Chinese researchers along with genetic doctors managed to get beyond the early embryonic stage that was the threshold for future development.This was the stage that proved the hardest to overcome had the most fatalities.

7 facts about monkey clones

1.Making history with monkey clones- For the first time in history two fully clones macques – monkeys have been successfully cloned and are alive beyond the embryo-tic stage.

2.They have been conceived using the same procedure of gene transfer and manipulation that was first used in 1996 for Dolly the sheep.

3.Clones to cure disease -In future this type of genetic modification and tweaking could possibly help cure Alzheimer’s and Parkinson.Some reports also verify that it could lead to a possible cure for cancer.

4.Previous attempts with fertilization- Since the last two decades scientists and genetic engineers have used a technique whereby they simply divide am embryo into 2 halves to create a genetic twin.This can produce only a maximum of 4 outcomes

5.Current attempt without fertilization-In somatic cell nuclear transfer , the nucleus is removed from the cell in monkey 1(fetus), and replaced with a nucleus from a cell from monkey 2(adult).Instead of fertilization,an electric current is used to stimulate the egg.

6.Surrogacy- now this egg  is implanted into an adult monkeys uterus.

7.Voila ! Successfully this method has given birth to two healthy twin monkeys. In the past the old methods had failed and the cloned animals did not last more than a few days.

Image courtesy : http://newscientist.com