China clones Tibetan goats for the first time

A group of Chinese scientists announced their success in cloning a pair of Tibetan goats for the first time. This achievement could help efforts to raise these animals responsible for producing cashmere wool.

For those in a hurry:

• Cloned Tibetan goats were bred in Qinghai, China;
• For cloning, researchers used a process involving somatic cells;
• According to Chinese state media, the goat's firstborn is in good health.

The cloning process was performed by researchers at Northwest A&F University who used somatic cells to carry out the process, according to Science Alert. Chinese media. The goats were born in Qinghai Province, which borders Tibet.

In response to Xinhua News Agency, the cloning program's chief scientist, Su Jianmin, said the firstborn of the goat was born healthy and weighed about 3.4 kilograms. In addition to this information, there are still no other details about the cloning process and the goats.

It is not yet clear whether the research related to cloning will be published in any scientific journal or journal. However, Chinese state media published a video of one of the cloned goats next to its mother.

Read more:

Cloning technology and China

The process of somatic cell cloning involves inserting the nucleus of a somatic cell — that is, a cell that is not an egg or sperm — into an egg that has had its nucleus removed. The new cell is then reconstructed and stimulated to divide and develop into a complete organism genetically identical to the nucleus of the donor somatic cell.

This process has already been used to clone other animals, such as Dolly the sheep, rats, ferrets, rabbits, dogs, pigs, goats, cows, and even the Pyrenean ibex, which until then, before its cloning, was considered extinct. This technology has also been used to clone a species close to the Tibetan goat, the Himalayan goat, which is native to the mountains of Kashmir.

China has recently emerged in the field of cloning. At the beginning of 2024, another study showed that Chinese researchers were able to clone a rhesus monkey, also using somatic cell technology.