In A Major Breakthrough, Scientists in China Clone First Healthy Rhesus Monkey

Chinese scientists made a major breakthrough in primate cloning by successfully producing the world's first healthy rhesus monkey. While this was not the first attempt, it is significant because the previous attempts did not led to the primate's birth in a surrogate or the off-springs died just few hours after they were born.

The method of cloning requires mixing DNA of two parents to turn them into embryos in a lab and transferring them to a surrogate mother's womb for further growth.

It is worth noting that the first Macaque monkeys were cloned in 2018 but it is the maiden cloning of Rhesus.

According to a BBC report, the scientists from China said that the success with the Rhesus monkey will speed up drug testing in humans since identical animals provide greater certainty in trials.

The Rhesus species is chosen for testing as it is physiologically similar to humans. According to an investigation by scientists at the Genome Sequencing Center at Washington University School of Medicine, Rhesus and humans are about 93% genetically similar. Same goes for Macaques which were first cloned in 2018. 

In the paper published in Nature Communications, the Chinese scientists said that they followed the same procedure for the cloning of Dolly the Sheep. Dolly was the first mammal to be genetically cloned in 1996 and it went on to live till 2003.