China clones macaque monkey with ‘disorder’ for animal testing purposes
This is questionable behaviour in my opinion. Chinese scientists say they have cloned five baby monkeys from a genetically edited macaque monkey with a brain disorder. The intention is to create cloned versions of this monkey so that they can do animal testing on them.
The idea is to discover treatments for ailments such as Alzheimer’s disease. The Chinese claim that the achievement brings in a new era of medical research.
“The achievement heralds a new era in which China can produce batches of standardised monkey clones, which will serve as animal models in the research of the brain’s cognitive functions, early diagnoses and interventions of diseases, as well as research and development of drugs,”
Chinese Academy of Sciences
As mentioned, this raises ethical concerns. The Times newspaper tells us that the macaques were cloned from one of several animals gene-edited to induce insomnia. They selected the most severely disturbed monkey. They extracted stem cells and then clone the five macaques.
