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Beijing: China has cloned the world's first rabbit from the somatic cells of the animal, allowing faster reproduction of genetically modified rabbits for medical use, the state media reported today.

 

The female rabbit born on February 12, which weighed 60 grams at birth, is now growing normally at an animal center in east China's Shanghai, 'China Daily' reported.

 

Since the first somatic cell-cloned sheep, Dolly, was born in 1996, scientists have cloned mice, cattle and pigs.

 

But it was only in 2002 French scientists produced the world's first cloned rabbit using ovum cumulus cells from an adult female rabbit.

 

But the one in China is quite different as it is the first cloned using fibroblast cells from a foetal rabbit.

 

The experiment was conducted by Dr Li Shangang, a researcher at the National Center for Molecular Genetics and Animal Breeding of the Beijing Institute of Animal Sciences.

 

"Fibroblast cells from foetal rabbits can be cultured for longer periods than those from adult rabbits; so they are better materials for gene modification and gene targeting...