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Scientists grow monkeys from cloned embryos
March 2, 1997
Web posted at: 9:00 p.m. ESTPORTLAND, Oregon (CNN) -- Scientists have produced sibling rhesus monkeys from cloned embryos in the technology's closest application yet to a species related to humans.
(800K/23 sec. QuickTime movie)
The monkeys were developed using cells from different embryos, so they are not genetically identical, said Don Wolf, senior scientist at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center.
"I don't see it as nearly as big a step as the step that was announced last week in [the magazine] Nature," Wolf said, referring to a Scottish lab's successful cloning of an adult sheep.
But the monkey experiment does mean the technology for producing genetically identical animals is now available, and that promises to be useful in experimental studies on diseases and "nature versus nurture" theories, he said.
Conducting tests on genetically identical animals will help reduce the number of animals needed for an experiment to have statistical significance, he said.
Wolf told the Portland Oregonian newspaper the experiment technically was not cloning.
"That is not what I am calling it," Wolf said. "Cloning in the strict sense of the term is using an adult cell so you get an exact replica of the adult. That is not what we are doing."
On the "down side," the achievement takes science closer toward suggesting the genetic procedure called nuclear transfer can be done in humans, he said.
"Of course, we have absolutely no interest in even cloning an adult rhesus monkey, let alone to be involved in cloning in humans," Wolf said, adding he finds the idea "repugnant."
The nuclear transfer technology has already been applied to mice, rabbits, cows and pigs, among other animals, said Wolf, who is also is director of the human in vitro fertilization laboratory at Oregon Health Sciences University.
To develop the monkeys, scientists harvested eggs from an adult female monkey, then fertilized each of them in vitro. After about three days, the embryos divided to the eight-cell stage of development.
The scientists then teased apart the cells, taking one full set of chromosomes from each embryo cell and inserting it into a fresh egg stripped of its DNA.
Nine successfully developed into embryos and were implanted in adult females. Three pregnancies and two live births resulted.
A paper on the work, titled "Nuclear Transfer in Rhesus Monkeys," has been submitted to the journal Biology of Reproduction but had not yet been accepted, Wolf said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- Report: Scientists clone 2 monkeys from embryos - March 2, 1997
- Poll: Most Americans say cloning is wrong - March 1, 1997
- Scientists defend cloning of sheep - February 25, 1997
Related sites:
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- Oregon Regional Primate Reseach Center
- Oregon Health Sciences University
- Animals as Inventions: Biotechnology and Intellectual Property Rights - Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy
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