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Two Twin Long-Tailed Macaque Monkeys Are the First Primates Cloned Using the Dolly Method (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the first-of-its-kind dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The twin long-tailed macaque monkeys are the first primates cloned using the same method that created the world's most famous sheep in 1996 -- a method called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT. The twins' genetic blueprints were swiped from fetal cells of another monkey. Researchers then popped the DNA into egg cells that they had also cleared of their DNA-containing nuclei. With a dash of compounds that spur embryo development, the reprogrammed cells developed into healthy baby monkeys in surrogate mother monkeys. The two were born about seven weeks ago in China and are developing normally so far, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Cell. Though the overall SCNT method is the same as what was used for Dolly, researchers struggled for years to tweak it to work in primates. The procedure is delicate and required a lot of optimization -- not to mention DNA-swaps.

The researchers behind the cute clones, led by Zhen Liu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, first tried using DNA from adult monkey cells. They created 192 embryos this way, implanting 181 of them into 42 surrogates, leading to 22 pregnant monkeys. But this resulted in the live birth of only two monkeys, both of which died within hours. Next, the researchers tried using DNA from fetal tissue. They created 109 embryos, implanted 79 of them into 21 surrogates, leading to pregnancy in six of them. Two female monkeys, Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, resulted. The researchers attribute their success to new cell-imaging methods, tweaking the right mix of reprogramming compounds, and lots of practice.

30 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. We need to be practical here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Could we focus are efforts on something a little more tasty?

    1. Re:We need to be practical here. by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Funny

      Could we focus are efforts on something a little more tasty?

      Behold, the five-assed monkey.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    2. Re:We need to be practical here. by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      If they'd cloned 12 I'd be paying attention

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    3. Re:We need to be practical here. by BranMan · · Score: 1

      And then armed them.

  2. Hot swap clones by goombah99 · · Score: 2

    I'm pretty excited about having hot swappable organs all ready for my old age stored in my lobotomized clone body.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Hot swap clones by Scarred+Intellect · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm pretty excited about having hot swappable organs all ready for my old age stored in my lobotomized clone body.

      They already tried; it was discovered that the bodies need to really live for the organs to be healthy. There's a nice documentary on it called The Island.

    2. Re:Hot swap clones by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      lobotomized

      But what if you need a new brain?

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    3. Re:Hot swap clones by goombah99 · · Score: 1

      Then you become the hot swap. your brain goes in the trash and someone elses goes in your body.

      --
      Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    4. Re:Hot swap clones by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      They already tried; it was discovered that the bodies need to really live for the organs to be healthy.

      The spare body wouldn't just sit in a vat. You could give it enough of a brain stem to run on a treadmill for an hour per day.

      Or you could use it as a "blood boy" for periodic transfusions of youthful blood. That seems to be working for Peter Thiel.

    5. Re:Hot swap clones by h4ck7h3p14n37 · · Score: 1

      Your brain circuits will be mapped to an artificial neural net.

      You'll believe you're still you, but it will just be an illusion.

    6. Re:Hot swap clones by scottrocket · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty excited about having hot swappable organs all ready for my old age stored in my lobotomized clone body.

      Heh that reminded me that a few years ago, I was piddling around on YouTube, and ran across "The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler", a TV movie I saw back in the 70's. Similar premise, except the brain/intelligence "reduction" was built in at the genetic level.

    7. Re:Hot swap clones by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      "Parts, the Clonus Horror" was a 70s movie of this type, too.

    8. Re:Hot swap clones by Humbubba · · Score: 1
      Why be stuck with the same old you, with a few new parts, when your brain could be encased in a fresh new clone body, with age and shell variations of your choosing? Genetic engineering and nascent clone development makes almost anything possible, especially as this is pure, albeit reasonable speculation. Maybe a 28 year old muscle bound he-man this time, and a 18 year old Stormy Daniels the next. With a hot swap-able brain, why you could pick a new body every week or so.

      When your brain gets too old, CRUL could drop your neuroimage into a clone's brain, within an 'acceptable' margin of error/percentage of image accuracy. But it wouldn't be you. But there could be a type of neurogenesis coming that could make you a new brain.

      If somebody wanted a clone of you, would 'Clones R Us, Ltd.' (CRUL) need your permission to sell another you? Would you get a cut? Would you care what they did with you(2)? And if CRUL mixed bits of different clones together to make several commercially viable product lines, would there be residuals? Bad joke aside, could a more perfect you lead to a potentially terminal species homogeneity?

  3. Oooooook by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    (throwing banana)

  4. Terrible Headline by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 2

    "Two Twin Long-Tailed Macaque Monkeys Are the First Primates Cloned Using the Dolly Method"

    My first attempt to parse this resulted in me thinking there was some sort of monkey with two tails, and now I am sad that there is not.

    1. Re:Terrible Headline by sheramil · · Score: 1

      "Two Twin Long-Tailed Macaque Monkeys Are the First Primates Cloned Using the Dolly Method"

      My first attempt to parse this resulted in me thinking there was some sort of monkey with two tails, and now I am sad that there is not.

      The "Dolly " method isn't perfect. Keep watching. It could happen.

    2. Re:Terrible Headline by mark-t · · Score: 1

      My first thought was is there another meaning for "twin" when referring to something like monkeys other than "two"? The first word in the headline is superfluous at best, and confusing at worst.

      It's about as redundant as the phrase "unmarried bachelor".

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  5. I either have dyslexia or need new glasses. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 1

    ... Monkeys Are the First Primates Cloned Using the Dolly Method

    I initially read that as "Pirates Cloned".

    Then I thought of the musical Hello Dolly, then imagined a musical version of Pirates of the Caribbean -- "Curse of the Lead Feet", then wondered if they could use cloned monkeys for that.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re:I either have dyslexia or need new glasses. by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 5, Funny

      I gotta admit, my first question is whether they have used the Dolly Method to clone llamas, just so they can have "Dolly Llamas."

      I'll be here all week. Try the veal!

    2. Re:I either have dyslexia or need new glasses. by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      And the Madison family to have Dolly Madisons. Okay, so that's not the right right spelling. *sigh*

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  6. STOCK TIP by Zurkeyon3733 · · Score: 2

    Invest in organ farming... Because this signals the dawn of it. The SECOND people can be cloned, the organ farms will begin. Bodies without brains. Empty shells filled with replacement parts. EXACT replacement parts... No Rejection. No Lifetime of Anti-Rejection Drugs. The New world of 140-200 year old elitists, taking OLD money to all new heights. Sociopaths that can live two CENTURIES. Isn't this JUST what the world needed? INVEST NOW! SCREW BITCOIN! :-D LOL!

    1. Re:STOCK TIP by h4ck7h3p14n37 · · Score: 1

      Cloning and genetic engineering of superior humans will eventually happen so long as we can avoid blowing ourselves up or creating some superbug/virus that wipes us all out.

      We're not playing God, we're playing Human using the tools that God gave us.

    2. Re:STOCK TIP by Nostalgia4Infinity · · Score: 2

      The path to farmed human organs lies in taking a relatively compatible animal embryo, say a pig, knocking out it's genes for whatever organ you need, inserting your genes for that organ and letting it grow. Then you simply remove the kidney, heart, whatever, that's now pretty much identical to the one you were born with. Human clones for organs is a primitive idea in the field of biology today.

    3. Re:STOCK TIP by Immerman · · Score: 1

      2.1 for me. I never trust an x.0 version.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    4. Re:STOCK TIP by Immerman · · Score: 2

      I think we're a good ways away from understanding DNA well enough to do that - and even with a perfect transcoding there's no guarantee they'd actually grow the same organ as would be produced by human cells - an incredible amount of growth structure is governed by environmental conditions, rather than the DAN directly. Or alternately the DNA gives instructions on how to build structure in a given environment - change the environment, and the structure changes as well.

      As a crude example, if researchers graft skin from opposite sides of a salamander's leg around a wound, it will grow a new leg at that location.

      Plus, you'd still have the problem of tissue rejection - that "human" organ is still made out of pig cells.

      On the other hand, we don't actually *need* to make human organs - just human-compatible ones. I suspect the modifications needed for that are relatively simple, at least if you could first manage some sort of "universal tissue donor" cellular changes first. Might be easier to start with a chimpanzee or bonobo though - nearly identical genetically and structurally. Tweak it to grow appropriately sized organs, but only a stub of a brain - minimizing ethical considerations while leaving it capable enough to be farmed rather than lab-grown. Of course, if you're doing that, you could always start with a human template - but that would probably make a lot of people a whole lot more uncomfortable, and could create some difficult social questions if interbreeding were possible. If phenominally stupid chimpanzee crossbreeds enter the wild, we can just let nature sort it out.

      Hey, while we're at it maybe we can give the donor animal duplicate organs and the ability to regenerate - no need to kill it to get an organ, you just can't harvest the same organ again until the second one has had a chance to grow back. Much more efficient that way, and the donated organs would likely prove far more resilient than the originals.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    5. Re:STOCK TIP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      5.1 for me.
      Think about Windows, ESX etc
      1.x for starters, 2.x refined version, 3.x first succesful version, 4.x screwing everything learned on 3.x with weird options and incompatibilities, 5.x the definitive working version. Above 5.x you are going to have 6.x with unneeded features, 7.x to forget the huge disaster the 6.x were, 8.x to try to reinvent the wheel and then the forever paying subscriptions model.

    6. Re:STOCK TIP by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but that's a far less reliable rule, and this is life extension we're talking about - we probably won't survive to see version 5 unless we've already partaken of the fruits of earlier versions. With luck, and funding from the vast fortunes accumulated by the rich old men first able to cheat death, many of the later extensions will still work on those who already had earlier treatments.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  7. Fuck those things by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    (Everyone has agreed to not post any serious comments about the story, right? Ok, good. No adults allowed!)

    As someone who plays Dwarf Fortress, I just want to be the first to say: Fuck rhesus macaques! We should be using science to get us fewer of them, not more of them!

  8. Trump is making us so dumb... by DulcetTone · · Score: 1

    ...that monkeys have beaten us to cloning

    --
    tone
  9. Amazing by Bender+Unit+22 · · Score: 1

    He’ll be the coolest monkey in the jungle.