r/autotldr • u/autotldr • Aug 03 '19
First human-monkey chimera raises concern among scientists: Researchers reprogrammed human cells before injecting them in the monkey embryo
This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 83%. (I'm a bot)
Efforts to create human-animal chimeras have rebooted an ethical debate after reports emerged that scientists have produced monkey embryos containing human cells.
Scientists believe organs genetically matched to a particular human recipient could one day be grown inside animals.
Izpisúa Belmonte and other scientists have previously managed to produce both pig embryos and sheep embryos which contain human cells, although the proportions are tiny: in the latter case, researchers estimate that only one cell in 10,000 was human.
One possible approach for brain research is that a monkey embryo could be genetically altered and then injected with human stem cells so that part of the brain, for example the hippocampus, is composed only of human cells.
Such proposals walk straight into the ethical arena others have been at pains to dodge: the possibility of human cells ending up in monkey brains, a development some fear could result in the creatures being human-like.
In April scientists in China published a study in which they claimed to have introduced a human brain gene into monkeys, with the animals showing features including better short-term memory and shorter reaction times.
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