Health

Combining Monkey DNA

by Jordan Yerman | August 26, 2009 at 11:29 am

31 views | 0 Recommendations | 1 comment

Scientists have produced monkeys with genetic material created by splicing DNA from two diferent mothers into a single egg.

Eventually, this technique could be used on people to combat birth defects and disease passed down from an embryo's mother, but also raises significant questions in terms of morality and the nature of the mother/child releationship: the child would have on efather and two genetic mothers. Also, the overall safety of this procedure can't be verified yet, not until the child grows to adulthood.

Using cloning-related techniques, the researchers developed a way to replace most of the genes in the eggs from one rhesus macaque monkey with those from another, fertilized the eggs with sperm, transferred the resulting embryos into animals' wombs and produced four apparently healthy offspring.

The familial impliations of this sort of genetic manipulation was dealt with in the criminally-overlooked Code 46.

0 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon