China became the first country to clone a monkey using nonreproductive cells, reducing the need to keep lab monkeys and paving the way for more accurate, effective, and affordable animal tests for new drugs .
By December of 2017, Chinese scientists had created two clone macaques named "Zhong Zhong" and "Hua Hua" by nuclear transferring of somatic cells any cell in the organism other than reproductive cells. This was the similar technology used to create the famous clone sheep Dolly in 1996.
"Cloning a monkey using somatic cells has been a worldclass challenge because it is a primate(灵长类)that shares its genetic makeup, therefore all of its complexity, with humans." Pu Muming said.
"For drug and other lab tests, scientists have to purchase monkeys from all over the world, which is costly, bad for the environment and produces inaccurate results because each monkey might have different genes," Pu said.
"By cloning monkeys using somatic cells, we can mass produce large numbers of genetically identical(相同的)offspring in a short time, and even change their genes to suit our needs," he added. "This can save time, cut down experiment costs, and produce more accurate results, leading to more effective medicine."
"This achievement will help China lead the world research in an international science project related to neural(神经的)mapping of primate brains,," he said. However, bio labs from the United States, Japan, and European countries are also very able, and they will quickly catch up to China after the monkey cloning technology is made public, Sun added."This means we have to innovate(创新)continuously and work extra harder this year to stay ahead," he said.