China Produce Its First IVF Monkeys

Plan to engineer gene-modified monkeys later Thursday, 11 September 2008 Chinese scientists have created the country's first test-tube monkeys, which are said to be the first step to engineer gene-modified monkeys. "Our next step is to bring about more test-tube monkeys and eventually make gene-modified monkeys benefiting for medical research," said Dr. Sun Qiang, at the Shanghai Institute of Brain Functional Genomics (IBFG), East China Normal University in Shanghai. Sun's team capitalized on a few new technologies on stimulating more eggs from female monkeys and collecting semen and mammalian oocytes, as well as new ways of in vitro fertilization and embryo transplantation. The new technologies "can significantly improve the pregnancy rate and live birth of healthy baby monkeys," the scientist said. All seven new born monkeys are healthy, Sun said, with the oldest Lele, or Happiness, being aged at one and half years. Reference: Efficient reproduction of cynomolgus monkey using pronuclear embryo transfer technique Qiang Sun, Juan Dong, Wenting Yang, Yujuan Jin, Mingying Yang, Yan Wang, Philip L. Wang, Yinghe Hu and Joe Z. Tsien PNAS September 2, 2008 vol. 105 no. 35 12956-12960 ......... ZenMaster

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