We have all heard of Dolly, the first animal to be cloned worldwide in 1996.
At the time, this successful cloning made it possible to improve our understanding of development and genetics but also to consider this solution in order to preserve endangered species. It paved the way for new cloning tests and especially the possibility of one day doing tests on humans.
Twenty years after Dolly, researchers in China have been able to bring genetically identical primates to life for the first time by using the same cloning technique. If this process has previously worked successfully on different species (dogs, cats, pigs …), it had always failed with primates.
“We can, in principle, clone humans,” said Muming Poo, co-author of the research. “I do not think anyone wants to clone human beings, society would not allow it” but “once a new technique appears, the risk of misuse exists”.
But techniques discovered through cloning can also bring beneficial ideas to humans.
According to Darren Griffin, professor at the University of Kent (UK), “the announcement of the first primate cloning will undoubtedly raise ethical concerns, the critics evoking the argument of the step closer to human cloning”. Still, he said, “the cloning of primates will be very useful to understand human diseases, especially genetic, and discover treatments.”
Cloning should allow the creation of research models for human diseases caused by genetic mutations such as cancers, immune dysfunctions or metabolic disorders. As a matter of fact, laboratories could test the efficacy of experimental treatments before conducting clinical trials. Cloning primates would also make it possible to use far fewer animals for experiments that raise many ethical questions nowadays.
Cloning is getting more and more support, but still divides the international community. It remains to be seen if human beings will benefit from it, in several decades…
Read the full paper in Cell.
