Time travel to the past! Chinese Researchers Create First-Ever Healthy Rhesus Monkey in Medical First

Cloning has remained a constant feature of science fiction, much like flying automobiles. Whether you view it as a portent of impending disaster or are simply thrilled about the prospect of human cloning, the fact is that humankind has come a long way since the days of Dolly the sheep almost thirty years ago.

Moreover, Chinese researchers have created Retro, the first healthy Macaca mulatt rhesus monkey, marking yet another noteworthy advancement in cloning technology. This accomplishment, which was revealed on Tuesday, represents a significant advancement in medical research and may open the door to novel therapies for a range of illnesses.

Using a method known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), scientists have successfully cloned over 20 different animal species since the ground-breaking cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996. Nevertheless, cloning primates has proven to be exceptionally challenging, with prior attempts yielding poor success rates and aberrant offspring.

For instance, out of 35 implanted foetuses, only one survived the first tries, and it died the next day. External experts noted that even the current “successful” experiment required 133 starting embryos to produce one survival. Even while they are still incredibly low figures, they represent a major improvement over earlier attempts.

This issue stems from the fact that cloned embryos’ placentas were frequently much more unstable than those of embryos fertilised in vitro, including those grown in a test tube.

The group overcome these difficulties by creating a novel method that includes using cells from a normal embryo in place of the cloned cells intended to create the placenta. With this vital adjustment, the success rate increased dramatically and the healthy two-year-old Retro was born.

With the use of this novel technology, scientists expect to produce identical rhesus monkeys for use in medical studies. These monkeys are perfect models for researching a variety of diseases, including as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and cancer, because they share numerous genetic similarities with people.

The capacity to breed genetically identical monkeys would also make it possible for scientists to conduct more controlled studies on the effects of medications and therapies.

Even if there may be advantages, the accomplishment of primate cloning presents serious ethical questions. Some specialists caution that before a healthy clone is born, the low success rate of the existing technology may result in the generation of numerous deformed and suffering animals. Furthermore, some people continue to have serious concerns about the prospect of human cloning, despite the fact that both the study’s researchers and the scientific community as a whole have expressly denounced it.

An important development in the world of cloning technology is the successful cloning of Retro. This development has enormous potential for the advancement of medical research, even though there are still ethical and technological issues to be resolved.