Human-Pig Chimera Embryos Have Been Created!

[Pitt Gorilla]

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and...-been-created/

The world is a little closer to one of the ethical dilemmas we have put off thinking about. Embryos have been produced combining DNA from pigs and humans to make a so-called “chimera”. They were allowed to develop for weeks before being destroyed. Almost certainly, such chimeric embryos will soon go further, but technical challenges have made their formation harder than scientists expected.

Chimeras are organisms formed from two fertilized cells or zygotes, particularly those from different species. They sound like they should stay in the pages of J.K. Rowling books or ancient mythology, but there are good reasons why some want to create them. Most notably, people are dying from a shortage of donor organs such as hearts and kidneys. Chimeras, particularly those made by combining pig and human fertilized cells, could offer a solution, producing organs that are similar enough to our own to be transferred effectively.

The idea strikes many as horrendous, but others argue it is no worse than raising animals, often in shocking conditions, purely to eat them. It also might be hard to tell someone whose only hope of survival rests with a chimeric liver that the idea is too repulsive to implement. Science fiction writers and philosophers have spent some time wrestling with the issues, but political institutions and the wider public have generally put it in the basket of difficult things we don't have to worry about just yet.

So the announcement in Cell of the successful creation of a pig-human chimera embryo serves as a wake-up call that we can't put off thinking much longer about whether this is something we should do.

The efforts of lead investigator Professor Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte of the Salk Institute and his team have showed that the obstacles are not just ethical. “The ultimate goal is to grow functional and transplantable tissue and organs, but we are far away from that,” Belmonte said in a statement. “This is an important first step.”

Izpisua Belmonte started by putting rat stem cells into a mouse embryo, something others have previously achieved. He then used gene-editing tools to delete the mouse genes responsible for the development of specific organs and replaced them with the rat equivalents. "The rat cells have a functional copy of the missing mouse gene, so they can outcompete mouse cells in occupying the emptied developmental organ niches," said first author Dr Jun Wu, also of the Salk Institute.

Human stem cells have previously been introduced to mouse embryos, but results have been poor. Izpisua Belmonte and Wu went large, leading a team of 40 people in an attempt to introduce human cells into cows and pigs. The bovine portion of the work proved more difficult and expensive, and was dropped in favor of a focus on pigs.

Even this wasn't easy, however. Pigs take less than four months from conception to birth, so development is much faster than for humans. "It's as if the human cells were entering a freeway going faster than the normal freeway," said Izpisua Belmonte. "If you have different speeds, you will have accidents."

Although the team eventually managed to get intermediate human pluripotent stem cells to form a chimera within a porcine embryo, the product was more pig than man. The authors consider this a good thing, since many of the biggest ethical issues would arise with the creation of a creature with a human-like brain.

The embryos were destroyed after 3-4 weeks, having demonstrated their viability to that point. The authors are working on inserting specific human genes into subsequent chimeras (as was done with the rat-mouse predecessors) to make more human organs.

[TribalElder]

Originally Posted by Dartgod

Bwana wins the thread.

Lock it down...

This

[bricks]

Originally Posted by Mr. Laz

Welp, there is going to be some kind of organ production system sooner or later. It's not a matter of if, but when.

They need to be able to grow organs that don't require Anti-Rejection Medications. That will save lots of lives.

no more expensive dialysis
a ton of need the heart organ
eyes
lungs

just about all of your organs

figure out how to clone/grow organs and then figure out to replace them without being so destructive during the replacement process. Help a lot of people.

Sounds like a great idea. Problem is, how are they gonna do that?

I know with respect to organ transplants (I.e., heart) anti-rejection medications are required. My uncle just had one recently and he had to take them and in fact is still taking them to this day.

Problem is, It's the immune system that messes things up. A lot of times, anything outside of our own bodies that is "not recognizable" is interpreted as a foreign invader. Immune system is tricked into thinking that "hey that's a pathogen let's go attack it!"

[Fish]

Snoot sandwiches for everybody!



http://www.kansascity.com/living/liv...128930799.html

[threebag]

Damn fish, I hate to see your search history

[Bwana]

Originally Posted by Fish

Snoot sandwiches for everybody!


http://www.kansascity.com/living/liv...128930799.html

That looks like something they would make you eat on that old show Fear Factor.

[Lzen]

Originally Posted by FanOfRED

Interesting.

[Lzen]

Originally Posted by Dartgod

What the Hell?

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by bricks

Sounds like a great idea. Problem is, how are they gonna do that?

I know with respect to organ transplants (I.e., heart) anti-rejection medications are required. My uncle just had one recently and he had to take them and in fact is still taking them to this day.

Problem is, It's the immune system that messes things up. A lot of times, anything outside of our own bodies that is "not recognizable" is interpreted as a foreign invader. Immune system is tricked into thinking that "hey that's a pathogen let's go attack it!"

I believe the key is to use cells from the receiver of the new organ during the process of "growing" it. If they clone/grow an organ with the cells from the person can is going to receive the organ then the body doesn't reject it.

[Titty Meat]

Rosie O'Donnell was the first one created

[LoneWolf]

Embryos with human cells were destroyed after 3-4 weeks. The anti-abortion crowd will not stand for this.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by LoneWolf

Embryos with human cells were destroyed after 3-4 weeks. The anti-abortion crowd will not stand for this.

Well you cant argue they created life just to kill it.

[kepp]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

Krieger...

[ThaVirus]

Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not thy could that they didn't stop to think if they should!

[Easy 6]

Just because something can be done, doesnt mean it should be done

They're creating abominations

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

Well you cant argue they created life just to kill it.

A rather simplistic take on the situation.

They created life to learn, to do research, but they have to kill it because the Religous Right would freak the **** out if they "played god" and let it grow.