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Human chimera4/27/2023 Human-monkey chimeras could be created to study parts of the brain, for instance, so we can better understand Alzheimer’s Disease. There are several rationales for pursuing this line of research. AlexMastro/Shutterstock Why make chimeras? In Greek mythology, the Chimera was said to be part lion, part goat and part snake. How we end up treating part-human chimeras will depend upon the moral status we assign them – a task that these latest embryonic experiments only makes more pressing. That’s ethically controversial, because these creatures could possess an ambiguous moral status: somewhere between that of humans, which we don’t tend to experiment upon, and animals, which we do. But for these purposes, part-human chimeras will first have to be born, and this research takes us one step closer to that eventuality. It’s hoped that part-human chimeras – essentially animal bodies with some human organs or other characteristics – might one day offer clues to help us treat human diseases, as well as providing organs to transplant to humans. We have a term for this type of life form: a chimera, named after the fire-breathing monster of Greek mythology that was part lion, part goat and part snake. You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, here. The embryos, which were derived from a macaque and then injected with human stem cells in the lab, were allowed to grow for 20 days before being destroyed. Scientists have created the world’s first monkey embryos containing human cells in an attempt to investigate how the two types of cell develop alongside each other. University of Oxford provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK. He presented at a Genomic Prediction-organised webinar (2021), but received no payment or other benefits from Genomic Prediction Ltd.Ĭésar Palacios-González received funding on two Wellcome Trust funded research projects – as a PhD student (2012-2016) and as Research Associate (2016-2018) – on the ethics of new biotechnologies. He does not personally receive any funds from Illumina. He is a Partner Investigator on an Australian Research Council Linkage award (LP190100841, Oct 2020-2023) which involves industry partnership from Illumina. Julian Savulescu receives funding from Wellcome Trust and the Uehiro Foundation on Ethics and Education. Senior Research Fellow in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford Perhaps even one day it could usher in new expressions of human traits.Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford Transgenic biotechnology will be a revolutionary step in combating a wide range of diseases and disorders. Regardless of whether the research turns out to be valid or productive, it is regardless - on its face - still pushing the boundaries of biological and genetic inquiry.Īlthough China has had its own public relations misstep with scientist He Juankui, who edited the genes of two babies to be resistant to HIV, the country’s open laws overall allow for more daring experimentation. Research like this can make the public and ethicists alike feel squeamish. Ross thinks that the researchers may be after more fundamental scientific questions - the “questions of evolutionary distance and interspecies barriers.” Typically they are very small, and they take too long to develop,” he says. “I always made the case that it doesn’t make sense to use a primate for that. Pablo Ross, a veterinary researcher at the University of California, Davis, who worked on pig-human chimera experiments, doesn’t believe that it makes sense to grow human organs in monkey cells, for instance. There is still some debate as to whether this is the best method.
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