 |
| Maybe we should try them in fashions too, Turuu |
Scientists have been working on growing the organs of one animal inside of a different type of animal. For example, scientists recently reported the successful growth of mouse pancreases inside of rats.
The ultimate goal of this type of work is to grow human organs inside of other animals as a means to ending the organ shortage that is costing thousands of people — who need a transplant — their lives each year.
Now, using similar methods as the mouse-rat hybrid, scientists have produced the first human-pig hybrid embryo, which is more difficult than you might think. Getting cells from one species to survive in an entirely different species is extremely tricky and has eluded scientists for years.
The group of scientists published their work on Thursday, Jan. 26, in the prestigious science journal Cell, Business Insider reports
First, the researchers experimented with mouse-rat chimeras. They used gene-editing technology to alter mouse embryos -- deleting some genes that are critical for the development of a particular organ, such as the heart, pancreas or eyes. The scientists then inserted rat stem cells into the embryos, to see if they would fill the developmental gap.
The resulting chimeric embryos were then implanted into surrogate mouse mothers, where they matured normally, the researchers found. And the rat cells did grow into mature organs.
That offers a "proof-of-principle,"Jun Wu, who worked on the research, said . Achieving the same feat with human stem cells, and a larger animal, is another story, however.
Wu said his team chose to work with pig embryos because pig organs are similar in size to humans'. They also used adult human stem cells called induced pluripotent stem cells.
After the pig embryos were injected with stem cells, the researchers implanted them in sows. The investigators allowed the embryos to mature for only four weeks before removing and studying them.
According to Wu, some embryos showed signs that the human stem cells were beginning to mature and form precursors to tissue.
But, he said, the actual "contribution" of human cells to the organism was low, and that's a hurdle that will have to be overcome.
Even now, this breakthrough is preliminary. Only about one out of every 100,000 cells in the hybrid embryos was human. If the scientists had grown the embryos to maturity (which they did not), the organs would probably not have enough human cells in them for a human body to recognize — resulting in the human body rejecting the organ and potentially killing the patient.
This is why more research is critical to improving the techniques, and hopefully, one day, paving the way for the first human transplant with a human-pig hybrid organ. But that day is years, possibly decades, off.
However the idea of creating human animal hybrids has met with ethical opposition, with some people claiming scientists are creating 'monsters.'
"I find these experiments disturbing," said Dr David King, Director of Human Genetics Alert, the secular watchdog group.
"In mythology human-animal chimeras were frightening monsters for good reason.
"I don't recall these scientists asking for the public's opinion before going ahead with such experiments."
Posted by , Published at January 28, 2017 and have
0
comments
No comments:
Post a Comment