US researchers successfully clone Rhesus Monkey

US researchers have reportedly created cloned embryos rom an adult monkey, paving the way for human cloning in the future.

London, Nov 15 : US researchers have reportedly created cloned embryos rom an adult monkey, paving the way for human cloning in the future.

Led by Shoukhrat M Mitalipov, the research team was able to extract stem ells from some cloned monkey embryos, and develop them into mature heart nd nerve cells in a laboratory

The researchers claimed their work established the possibility of cloning umans and getting stem cells from their embryos.

"The efficiency is still low, but I am quite sure that it will work in umans," the Nature journal quoted Mitalipov, as saying.

The researchers used somatic cell nuclear transfer to generate cloned mbryos. The technique involved taking the nucleus from an adult cell, in his case fibroblasts, a type of skin cell, taken from nine adult males.

Then an egg cell was hollowed out and the nucleus from the adult cell nserted.

The researchers used 304 eggs from 14 rhesus macaque monkeys and ended up ith just two stem cell lines.

The scientists tried to implant about 100 cloned embryos into the wombs of round 50 surrogate female macaques. However, their efforts did not result n the birth of any offspring.

With this study, scientists hope they might one day be able to use these rogenitors to create transplant tissues that are genetically matched to atients with degenerative conditions.

ANI