Reacción a "Reactions: First chimeric monkey born from embryonic stem cell lines"

This work is a strong proof-of-principle demonstrating that chimerism—with high levels of donor cell contribution from autologous pluripotent stem cells—is possible through early embryo complementation in non-human primates (cynomolgus monkey). This had been achieved before in rodents. In primates, it has been more challenging.  

A few years ago, our research group at UCAM pioneered the studies of chimerism with iPS cells in primates—with the ultimate goal of generating transplantable human organs to treat irreversible diseases. This study builds on that direction and paves the way for complex genome engineering of monkeys, the same way that chimerism revolutionised mouse genetics and mouse model diseases in the past century. The clinical implications of these and our studies are very relevant, since they will facilitate human disease modelling studies in non-human primates. It also has major implications for species conservation.