It took over 200 tries to implant and get a Dolly.
There are two outcomes for cloned embryos: reproductive or therapeutic. Getting a baby monkey, while interesting in itself, is not as "researchable" right now, nor is it applicable to humans due to ethical issues. Besides, Don Wolf has proven that cloned monkey embryos (not by SCNT) can be implanted and produce babies in the monkey (twins in fact).
With the stem cells, researchers can concentrate on producing the different cell types and transplanting the back into the genetic donor. Just getting the stem cells to differentiate efficiently and consistently into the various cell types will be a challenge. What's going to happen when they transplant them into the patient. It's assumed immune compatibility, but will invitro culture show effects on the cells, making them difficult to function invivo? So many questions to be answered...
But at least we know that they can clone a primate. No need to waste more time on this...let's get to the real research. Still saying it's not a big step?
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It took over 200 tries to implant and get a Dolly. There are two outcomes for cloned embryos: reproductive or therapeutic. Getting a baby monkey, while interesting in itself, is not as "researchable" right now, nor is it applicable to humans due to ethical issues. Besides, Don Wolf has proven that cloned monkey embryos (not by SCNT) can be implanted and produce babies in the monkey (twins in fact). With the stem cells, researchers can concentrate on producing the different cell types and transplanting the back into the genetic donor. Just getting the stem cells to differentiate efficiently and consistently into the various cell types will be a challenge. What's going to happen when they transplant them into the patient. It's assumed immune compatibility, but will invitro culture show effects on the cells, making them difficult to function invivo? So many questions to be answered... But at least we know that they can clone a primate. No need to waste more time on this...let's get to the real research. Still saying it's not a big step?