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Nice headline, until you realise how many dead cloned baby rhesus monkeys there must have been.

Qem 3y ago
> When researchers cloned long-tailed macaques in 2018, they created 109 cloned embryos and implanted nearly three-quarters of them into 21 surrogate monkeys, resulting in six pregnancies. Just two of the monkeys survived birth. Indeed the survival stats for cloning are abysmal.
- greggsy 3y ago
  I have not idea what the survival rates for a healthy monkey might be, or even an embryo for that matter, so I’m unsure what to make of these figures.
- mdorazio 3y ago
  This likely has far more to do with IVF than with cloning. In humans, IVF is only 20-30% successful on the first attempt and these days it’s strongly recommended to only try one embryo at a time. Based on the numbers quoted it looks like they did 5 at a time per monkey which decreases survival rates even more. Add in average miscarriage rates in humans of 10-20% (increases with age) and this experiment doesn’t look all that bad to me.
  - o11c 3y ago
    ¾ of 109 embryos across 21 mothers is 3.8 embryos per mother. For human miscarriage rates, remember it depends heavily on how far along the pregnancy is: 70% of conceptions lead to miscarriage 50% of implantations lead to miscarriage 30% of aggressively confirmed pregnancies lead to miscarriage 15% of typical confirmed pregnancies lead to miscarriage
anarticle 3y ago
This protocol seems unlikely to pass IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees) at US universities. That is the usual check to animal experimentation in the US. Biggest primate work in US is behavioral stuff, we stopped doing grisly primate things after In general, IACUC exists to review protocols that use animals. The burden of proof is on the scientist to prove that work cannot be done by cell lines, and sometimes it results in less animals or redesign to use cell lines. If you do end up using animals, you have to prove make sure your protocol is taking proper care of them. This includes pain meds, heating pads, post surgery care, etc. They are not a rubber stamp committee, I have seen labs shut down over discovered animal abuse and put on pretty extreme probationary measures at major institutions. It was in fashion in the 2010s to move animal experimentation especially for non rat/mouse stuff to China through partnerships. AMA if you've any IACUC/animal experimentation questions, I worked in that field for ~10y. Strangely IACUC as a concept was formed closely after the Penn primate experiment video leak... IACUC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Animal_Care_and_Use_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Animal_Care_and_... Penn primate experiments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnecessary_Fuss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnecessary_Fuss

Qem 3y ago

> When researchers cloned long-tailed macaques in 2018, they created 109 cloned embryos and implanted nearly three-quarters of them into 21 surrogate monkeys, resulting in six pregnancies. Just two of the monkeys survived birth. Indeed the survival stats for cloning are abysmal.

greggsy 3y ago
I have not idea what the survival rates for a healthy monkey might be, or even an embryo for that matter, so I’m unsure what to make of these figures.
mdorazio 3y ago
This likely has far more to do with IVF than with cloning. In humans, IVF is only 20-30% successful on the first attempt and these days it’s strongly recommended to only try one embryo at a time. Based on the numbers quoted it looks like they did 5 at a time per monkey which decreases survival rates even more. Add in average miscarriage rates in humans of 10-20% (increases with age) and this experiment doesn’t look all that bad to me.
- o11c 3y ago
  ¾ of 109 embryos across 21 mothers is 3.8 embryos per mother. For human miscarriage rates, remember it depends heavily on how far along the pregnancy is: 70% of conceptions lead to miscarriage 50% of implantations lead to miscarriage 30% of aggressively confirmed pregnancies lead to miscarriage 15% of typical confirmed pregnancies lead to miscarriage

anarticle 3y ago

This protocol seems unlikely to pass IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees) at US universities. That is the usual check to animal experimentation in the US. Biggest primate work in US is behavioral stuff, we stopped doing grisly primate things after In general, IACUC exists to review protocols that use animals. The burden of proof is on the scientist to prove that work cannot be done by cell lines, and sometimes it results in less animals or redesign to use cell lines. If you do end up using animals, you have to prove make sure your protocol is taking proper care of them. This includes pain meds, heating pads, post surgery care, etc. They are not a rubber stamp committee, I have seen labs shut down over discovered animal abuse and put on pretty extreme probationary measures at major institutions. It was in fashion in the 2010s to move animal experimentation especially for non rat/mouse stuff to China through partnerships. AMA if you've any IACUC/animal experimentation questions, I worked in that field for ~10y. Strangely IACUC as a concept was formed closely after the Penn primate experiment video leak... IACUC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Animal_Care_and_Use_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Animal_Care_and_... Penn primate experiments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnecessary_Fuss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnecessary_Fuss