Chinese scientists clone first rhesus monkey to live into adulthood, with tweak to process behind Dolly the sheep

Cloned monkeys like Retro, now three, can aid drug efficacy tests without genetic difference interfering with the results, researchers behind feat say

Extra step added for successful cloning may have future applications in human assisted reproduction, team says in Nature Communications paper

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Retro is the first rhesus monkey, and only the second primate species ever, to be successfully cloned. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:00am, 18 Jan 2024Updated: 9:24am, 18 Jan 2024

Researchers affiliated to China’s premier science academy have successfully cloned the first rhesus monkey to survive into adulthood.

Retro, now three years old, was born after the team added an extra step to the conventional cloning method.

Identical cloned monkeys such as these could be used to study diseases and drug efficacy without genetic difference interfering with the results, according to the team based in Beijing and Shanghai.

The scientists also said that the extra step added to the cloning method could have future applications in human assisted reproduction.

Retro is the first of his species – and only the second primate species ever – to be successfully cloned.

He was just over two years old when the team – from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ (CAS) neuroscience and genetics and developmental biology institutes – began writing a paper on their achievement. It was published in the peer-reviewed, open access journal Nature Communications on Tuesday.

Cloning could help produce a large number of genetically uniform monkeys for use in drug efficacy tests

Poo Mu-ming, director, CAS Institute of Neuroscience

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