China to welcome third cloned macaque monkey soon

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China will soon witness the birth of a third macaque monkey cloned from somatic cells, months after the world's first two cloned macaque monkeys were born, the Ministry of Science and Technology said on Sunday.

Dubbed Meng Meng (meaning dream in Chinese), this will be the third member of China’s cloned macaque family, along with Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua (“Zhonghua” stands for "China" in Chinese), which were born on November 27 and December 5, 2017 respectively. The three names together form “Chinese dream”.

The long-tailed primates, as the closest relations to humans, are expected to help scientists in the study of infantile autism and Alzheimer’s disease.

The world's first two macaque monkeys cloned from somatic cells /VCG Photo

China announced that it had successfully cloned the world’s first two macaques from somatic cells with the same method used to clone Dolly the Sheep in late January.

In response to public concerns, scientists stressed that the cloned macaques will be used only to build new models for helping to understand human brains and treat human diseases, and the technique is not for human cloning.

“There is no need to do human cloning research, and no human clone is allowed by social ethics,” said Pu Muming, co-author of the macaque study.