Human-Pig Hybrid Created in the Lab
In a remarkable—if likely controversial—feat, scientists announced that they have created the first successful human-animal hybrids. The project proves that human cells can be introduced into a non-human organism, survive, and even grow inside a host animal, in this case, pigs.
This biomedical advance has long been a dream and a quandary for scientists hoping to address a critical shortage of donor organs.
Every ten minutes, a person is added to the national waiting list for organ transplants. And every day, 22 people on that list die without the organ they need. What if, rather than relying on a generous donor, you could grow a custom organ inside an animal instead?
That’s now one step closer to reality, an international team of researchers led by the Salk Institute reports in the journal Cell. The team created what’s known scientifically as a chimera: an organism that contains cells from two different species.
Journal article:
http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(16)31752-4
Article via SA
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/human-pig-hybrid-embryo-chimera-organs-health-science/
Image: This pig embryo was injected with human cells early in its development and grew to be four weeks old.
Photograph courtesy: JUAN CARLOS IZPISUA BELMONTE
#research #chimerapig #transplantation #medicine #health #biomedicaladvance
Would you get a heart transplant for your child from such a chimeras to save their lives?
ReplyDeleteWhen is a soul is attached in these chimeras? Only if we develop parts of the brain for transplant?
Which part of these chimeras have property rights?
Lets hand this one to the Supreme Court for politicization!
More Donald than duck.
ReplyDeleteThe way people see this always amazes me, we live in the 21st century and yet human beings can't transcend the bullshit. That's why we can't harvest organs from dead brain patients, aborted babies or dead row inmates. This is a possibility to save lives. If I was in need for an organ my concerned would be if my body would react properly and accept the organ, so let's cut the crap with souls and such.
ReplyDeleteWe need an "OrganNursery" and we need this from long time.
Corina Marinescu soul? I believe that all animals and all plants are sacred, and must be respected, all life goes respected! I mind very much if a alien strong of his superiority in the race, but weak of moral principles, he used human women to give birth to hybrids. I'm not at all opposed to donate organs, because there is the obvious desire of the donor, I am against the barbarism perpetrated in the name of scientific progress. ☹️
ReplyDeleteCorina Marinescu if you want to know if I would use the hybrid to save a person dear to me, the answer is obviously yes, but the fact remains the fact that ethically it is immoral to use hybrids !!!☹️☹️☹️
ReplyDeleteWhat's the good in promoting the confusion of hybrids and chimeras in the mind of the public, btw? If people have an idea of hybrids and none of chimeras, it eases the first shot to call the latter by the name of the former, a silent metaphor, but this has future costs.
ReplyDeleteif private chimera human organ, would continue his life as an animal, it would be acceptable, (otherwise from ethical point of view, change little, if name is accurate). Unfortunately, this is not.
ReplyDeleteFossilized is unhygienic for hygiene to be.
ReplyDeleteAn idea gets tyrannical, that to each their own DNA and conversely. Human chimeras occur spontaneously, persons of whom gets incidentally discovered that their tissues are made from cells from two distinct conception events. A kind of converse to identical twins, instead of one DNA, two brothers, you have two DNA, one brother.
(Also to answer my own earlier question, a good reason to replace "chimera" by "hybrid" is that the noun is less scary-sounding)
Fossilized is unhygienic for hygiene to be -- I couldn't be more serious.
ReplyDeletehad there not been spontaneous mutations, life on earth would still be based on viruses, or single-celled organisms, was not the work of man has not had to deal with his conscience. Dirt damages the body and hygiene defends us. You wish to manipulate the animals they have never done no offense
ReplyDeleteSo I suppose you don't eat animal meat? Hygiene is what you understand it to be in basic extension, but in my intention it is the right name to give to the discipline of culture in charge of replacing genes for the responsibility of responding to natural selection pressure
ReplyDeleteI may be FOR using this tech.
ReplyDeleteAnd you may be too.
However, given the world we live in, it might not be so simple.
Consider European reaction to GMOs.
Or religious fundamentalists against stem cell harvesting.
Then there is the animal rights views.
And on and on.
It is political dynamite.
Boris Borcic You see, eat is a natural fact, so far there is no alternative vadide, unlike the organs have several alternatives, including a recent and promising: the stanpanti 3d and the cells of the same patient treated so as to become similar to stem cells, life it can be perpetrated by methods that do not require barbarism.
ReplyDeleteVincenzo Sicari Vegetarians exist and demonstrate there's an alternative to industrial meat, that is in turn regularly denounced for a barbarism of their treatment of animals that's not likely to be less than the one you fear in intensity, and certain to be more massive in scale.
ReplyDeleteBoris Borcic I'm not vegetarian, and I've already said that respect all life, animal or plant does not change anything, as I have already told you, there is an alternative to the chimeras that does not require barbarism: the voluntary donation of organs, and printers 3d, that use the same donor cells treated so as to become indifferenziate. On the contrary there is no alternative to food.
ReplyDeleteVincenzo Sicari I was just pointing out that at issue here was not an alternative to food but an alternative to meat, and while the former doesn't exist the latter indeed does.
ReplyDeleteSo what is it that makes the notorious mistreatment of pigs used for industrial and cheap meat production, not a compelling cause to prefer the alternative, but does make the (anticipated) mistreatment of pigs used for chimeric nurturing of human organs, a compelling cause to prefer the alternative?
Has what makes the difference here not to do with interference from the simplifying dogma that individuals and their DNA are conceptually interchangeable for the purpose of establishing their existence/life?
Boris Borcic I'm not a nutritionist, so I have to rely on feeling my body guided by my brain. In Europe we have the Mediterranean diet is a balanced diet that includes plant and animal food, only eat meat so it is bad for the body, but also eat only plant is bad for the body. When I eat a steak, I feel better than eating a salad, perhaps depends more energy to eat a steak or maybe because the body makes less effort to turn it into replacement substances to our cells, on the other hand I go crazy for confectionery, for ice cream, for sugars and for the nutella (peanut and cocoa butter). I do not see any advantage in removing the meat, indeed I see a disadvantage. The meat is necessary and irreplaceable. Chimeras on the contrary have several viable substitutes that do not require immorality moral choices.
ReplyDelete