世界首例体细胞克隆猴在中国诞生

China became the first country to clone a monkey using non-reproductive cells, reducing the need to breed lab monkeys and paving the way for more accurate, effective, and affordable animal tests for new drugs, scientists said on Thursday.

科学家们周四称，中国成为首个使用非生殖细胞克隆猴的国家，这将减少培育实验用猴的需要，为更精确有效、经济可行的动物新药测试打下基础。

By December, the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences had created two clone macaques named "Zhong Zhong" and "Hua Hua" by nuclear transferring of somatic cells -- any cell in the organism other than reproductive cells. This was the similar technology used to create the famous clone sheep Dolly in 1996.

截至去年12月，中国科学院神经科学研究所通过体细胞(生物体中的非生殖细胞)的细胞核移植，成功培育出两只克隆猕猴，起名“中中”和“华华”。这与1996年培育出克隆绵羊“多利”的技术十分相似。

Tetra, a rhesus monkey born in 1999, is the world`s first ever-cloned monkey, but it was done using a simpler method called embryo splitting, but it could only generate four cloned offspring at a time and cannot be genetically modified to suit experimental needs, said Pu Muming, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the director of Institute of Neuroscience, CAS.

诞生于1999年的恒河猴Tetra是世界上首只克隆猴，当时使用的是胚胎分裂技术这种更简单的方法，但一次只能克隆出四个克隆体，且无法进行基因编辑以满足实验需求，中科院神经科学研究所所长蒲慕明院士表示。

"Cloning a monkey using somatic cells has been a world-class challenge because it is a primate that shares its genetic makeup, therefore all of its complexity, with humans," he said.

“使用体细胞克隆猴子是一个世界性难题，因为猴子作为灵长类，和人类有着同样复杂的基因组成，”他说道。

"For drug and other lab tests, scientists have to purchase monkeys from all over the world, which is costly, bad for the environment and produces inaccurate results because each monkey might have different genes," Pu said.

“对于药物和其他实验室实验而言，科学家们需要从全球各地购买猴子，不光成本高昂，不利于环境，而且实验结果也并不准确，因为每只猴子可能都带有不同的基因，”蒲慕明表示。

"By cloning monkey using somatic cells, we can mass cultivate large number of genetically identical offspring in a short amount of time, and we can even change their genes to suit our needs," he added. "This can save time, cut down experiment costs, and produce more accurate results, leading to more effective medicine."

“通过体细胞克隆猴子，我们可以在短时间内培育大量基因相同的猴子，甚至根据需求编辑基因，”他补充道。“这可以节省时间，减少实验开支，提供更准确的实验结果，从而带来更有效的新药。”

Sun Qiang, director of the non-human primate research facility at the institute, said most of the drug trials are currently done on lab mice. However, drugs that work on mice might not work or even have severe side effects on humans because the two species are so different.

中科院神经科学研究所非人灵长类研究平台主任孙强表示，目前大多数药物试验是采用实验室小鼠完成的。但由于小鼠和人类相差太远，在小鼠身上有效的药物或许对人类不起作用，甚至还具有严重的副作用。

"Monkeys and Humans are both primates, so they are much closely related and testing on Monkeys is supposed to be as effective as testing on humans," he said. This is especially useful in testing drugs for neural diseases such as Parkinson`s disease, metabolic and immune system disease, and tumor, he added.

“猴子和人类同属灵长类，因此两者之间非常相近，而在猴子身上进行试验被认为和人体试验一样有效，”他表示。这对于测试帕金森氏病、代谢与免疫系统疾病以及肿瘤等神经疾病的药物尤其有用，他补充道。

"This achievement will help China lead the world research in an international science projects related to neural mapping of primate brains," he said. However, bio labs from the United States, Japan, and European countries are also very capable, and they will quickly catch up to China after the monkey cloning technology is made public, Sun added.

“这项成就将令我国在‘灵长类全脑图谱计划’国际科学项目中处于领跑地位，”他表示。然而，美国、日本以及欧洲国家的生物实验室也很有能力，在克隆猴技术公诸于众后很快就会赶超上来，孙强补充道。

"This means we have to innovate continuously and work extra harder this year to stay ahead," he said.

“这意味着我们今年需要不断创新，更加努力，才能保持领先地位，”他表示。