Scientists have successfully made five clones of a gene-edited monkey to aid in researching a number of conditions relating to circadian rhythms. The idea is that having a group of five genetically identical monkeys will help remove variables in research, but the whole experiment raises some rather murky ethical issues as well.
The first cohort of five gene-edited monkey clones made from fibroblasts of a monkey with disease phenotypes were born recently at the Institute of Neuroscience of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai.
Gene-edited monkey
Researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience (ION) of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Shanghai intially gene-edited a group of monkeys to make it more prone to disorders that stem from circadian rhythms. Because of this gene editing, the monkeys “exhibited a wide-range of circadian disorder phenotypes, including reduced sleep time, elevated night-time locomotive activities, dampened circadian cycling of blood hormones, increased anxiety and depression, as well as schizophrenia-like behaviors.”
These monkeys exhibited a wide-range of circadian disorder phenotypes, including reduced sleep time, elevated night-time locomotive activities, dampened circadian cycling of blood hormones, increased anxiety and depression, as well as schizophrenia-like behaviors. “Disorder of circadian rhythm could lead to many human diseases, including sleep disorders, diabetic mellitus, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases.
The teams behind the research appear to be forthcoming about what they hope to learn. In one paper, the researchers state that the reason they developed monkeys prone to these disorders is to learn more about how they can be treated in humans.
well, some have raised ethical concerns both with the idea of gene-editing monkeys to make them more disposed to these serious disorders as well as with cloning an animal like that for research purposes.
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