Scientists Map DNA of Rhesus Monkeys

Posted by Zonk on Friday April 13, 2007 @07:23AM from the next-up-the-apes-in-un'goro dept.

KingKong writes "Scientists have unraveled the DNA of another of our primate relatives, this time a monkey named the rhesus macaque — and the work has far more immediate impact than just to study evolution. These fuzzy animals are key to testing the safety of many medicines, and understanding such diseases as AIDS, and the new research will help scientists finally be sure when they're a good stand-in for humans. 'Having a third primate will allow scientists to compare the three genomes, with an added emphasis on singling out the genes possessed by humans alone. The end goal is to reconstruct the history of every single one of the approximately 20,000 genes, to determine when they first appeared in history, and in what species. All of this requires an extraordinary amount of information.'"

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Freaky monkeys by CopaceticOpus · 2007-04-13 11:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

The Rhesus monkey is close enough to our genetic makeup to help us research many diseases. But of course, the closer its DNA, the more helpful it would be. I wonder how much temptation there is to start modifying Rhesus monkey DNA to be closer to our own. How much human DNA can you splice in there before you have something that is in effect human? What do you have if it's only half human?

This could become rather weird.