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Japan Is Going To Allow Scientists To Create Human-Animal Hybrids
Ethically questionable experiments allowed to perhaps save more lives in the future.
Science always has its way to weird us out.
It’s happening, we’re going to have animals which have DNA infused with our very species’. No, it’s not to create some nasty products of a mix between animals and humans – this effort is to improve organ transplantation. While the procedure is no more rare, the organs are always not enough.
Genetically modified animal embryos will have their DNA injected with humans stem cells. Then, that embryo will be put back into a female as a surrogate and scientists hope these babies will be able to develop several human organs perfectly.
If experts can successfully recreate human organs in animals, that would mean unlimited supply of organs. Imagine people with Diabetes Type-I can immediately be cured by replacing their pancreas with a whole new one. Children won’t have to go through a long waiting list because hearts can be taken from piglets for them.
Japanese professor of genetics Hiromitsu Nakauchi from Stanford University leads the research.
“It took nearly 10 years, but we are now able to start the experiment,” the prof. said speaking to Telegraph after previously Japan had to terminate human-animal hybrid experiment within 14 days.
Previously, The Salk Institute in the US has grown human-animals hybrid, but no organs have been formed. They have also added only 1 in 100,000 cells to be human.
The new wave of experiment will have 1 in 10,000 and goes around the common rejections of human cells by using its stem form.
The experiment is a controversial one and results won’t appear anytime soon. Prof. Nakauchi said, “The study is just about to begin. Do not expect that we are generating human organs in a year or two.”
The team is also going through the experiment with two major checkpoint:
“We will have two checkpoints during embryonic development of chimeras. At each step we examine embryos for the presence of human cells in the brain. After confirming the absence or few human cells, we go to the next step.”
What do you think? Is this highly controversial experiment worth it? Will it be able to save lives at the risk of developing animals that may develop humane attitudes?
