Chinese researchers give birth to fluorescent “chimeric” macaque

2023-11-09 19:01:47

A fluorescent “chimeric” macaque. Cell / Cao and all

DECRYPTION – This hybrid individual was formed from an embryo and genetically modified stem cells. This approach might make it possible to create animal models relevant to certain human diseases.

It was a very strange birth that took place in a laboratory in Shanghai. For the first time, Chinese researchers have succeeded in giving birth to a monkey containing cells modified with a jellyfish gene which made some of its organs fluorescent. A hybrid being that scientists call a “chimera”. Photos of the baby macaque published in the magazine Cell are disturbing. The animal has a very strange greenish tint under its coat, particularly visible at the tips of its fingers and deep in its eyes.

If this chimera seems straight out of a bad fantasy film, it is in fact an important advance which might help the search for treatments once morest serious diseases. And, unlike the scandal of the two genetically modified babies, in 2018, by He Jiankui, a researcher from Shenzhen, the study was accepted by a very high-level journal and would have respected all the ethical standards in force in Europe and the United States. -United

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