GENE RANDALL, CNN ANCHOR: Scientists have, for the first time, used an embryo splitting technique to clone a monkey. The result: one living rhesus monkey, a female named Tetra. Scientists at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center conducted the research. CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is covering the story for us in Portland. Elizabeth, what does it all mean?</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what this all means is that this could advance scientific research in general whenever primates are used. Scientists like to use identical clones -- would like to use identical clones for research, because for example when you're testing the effects of a drug, you want to get rid of all the variables in your study subjects and if you have genetically identical monkeys there are no variables. They're exactly the same. So it could speed up research and they could possibly use fewer animals and that would obviously be a good thing.</s>RANDALL: How does what's happened here differ from what was used with Dolly the cloned sheep?</s>COHEN: Dolly was cloned using a completely different technique and I think the technique that most people have in mind when they think of cloning. With Dolly they took an adult and they made an exact copy of that adult. With this, the copies are actually siblings of one another, so you didn't go from an adult to a baby. You have four baby sisters that are exactly identical.</s>RANDALL: Anytime there is a cloning event the question is, does this put us closer to human cloning? Is there an answer to that?</s>COHEN: Well, technically this discovery -- this technique could be used for human cloning. There's really no reason it couldn't be, but there's a ban on using federal funding for cloning and people have -- many scientists have signed an agreement saying that they won't even use private money, but technically this could be applied. There is no reason it couldn't be.</s>RANDALL: Elizabeth Cohen in Portland, Oregon. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Scientists Use Embryo Splitting Technique to Clone Monkey