Posted on 04/15/2021 6:00:06 PM PDT by ebb tide
Scientists are pushing new ethical boundaries with human-animal experimentation.
On Thursday, an article published in the journal “Cell” describes how an international team of scientists created embryos that were part-human and part-monkey, or chimeras. The researchers used the embryos to explore the possibility of growing organs for people who need organ transplants
Speaking with NPR, several U.S. scientists raised ethical concerns about the new experiment, but another bioethicist defended the research for having “lofty humanitarian goals.”
But the means are not always justified by the end goal.
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Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a California scientist who co-wrote the study, said they want to address the problem that there are not enough organ donations for people who need transplants, according to the report.
“The demand for that is much higher than the supply,” said Belmonte, a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences.
Their research, a team project with scientists in China and other parts of the world, explored whether human pluripotent stem cells would grow in monkey embryos.
According to NPR:
The researchers injected 25 [human stem] cells … into embryos from macaque monkeys, which are much more closely genetically related to humans than are sheep and pigs.
After one day, the researchers reported, they were able to detect human cells growing in 132 of the embryos and were able to study the embryos for up to 19 days. That enabled the scientists to learn more about how animal cells and human cells communicate, an important step toward eventually helping researchers find new ways to grow organs for transplantation in other animals, Belmonte said.
Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University and Harvard University, defended the experiment, telling NPR that thousands of people die every year in the U.S. because they cannot get an organ transplant.
“It’s aimed at lofty humanitarian goals,” Hyun said.
But other scientists were troubled by the ethics of human experimentation.
“I think the public is going to be concerned, and I am as well, that we’re just kind of pushing forward with science without having a proper conversation about what we should or should not do,” Kirstin Matthews, a scientist at Rice University, told the news outlet.
Some noted the slippery slope of human experimentation and how far it could go, such as trying to “make a baby out of an embryo made this way. Specifically, the critics worry that human cells could become part of the developing brain of such an embryo — and of the brain of the resulting animal,” according to the report.
We’ve already had two presidents from this category - the Smirking Chimp, and the Queen of Man’s Country...
I’ve seen the movie,it doesn’t.🙄
Are they still trying with sheep and goats?
Admit it though.... when Charlton Heston’s Planet of the Apes came out back in the day...we thought it was a pretty cool sci-fi what if... even without the cavebabe....
Not necessary. The embryos will already have been micro-chipped as demoncrats. And that's not a misspelling.
I never watched that crap.
I thought it was silly when it came out. And I was just a kid at the time.
Elton John has never stopped.
 "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man" (song link) |
More NBA players.
Shades of the movie, “The Island” where clones were grown for replacement parts for the wealthy.
Wow...that’s from the “way back machine”!
Gee, what could go wrong?
Valerie Jarrett??
This is sick.
Humans for Mars colonization?
Some Italian's who or what?
Some Italian's buddy?
Maybe it was just an ugly-looking girl he fertilized?
Regards,
I can see real problems for a human brain developing in the space meant for a monkey brain.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116654/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
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