Share
News

Team of American and Chinese Scientists Announces Human-Monkey Hybrids Have Been Created

Share

A team of U.S. and Chinese scientists have produced a series of human-monkey hybrid embryos in a study released Thursday that is raising critical bioethical questions about its experiments and their implications.

In the study funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and published in the journal Cell, scientists took six-day-old macaque monkey embryos and injected 25 human cells into each of them.

The type of human cells used are extended pluripotent stem cells, which can help develop both embryonic and extra-embryonic tissues, according to a Cell news release.

Trending:
KJP Panics, Hangs Up in Middle of Interview When Reporter Shows He Isn't a Democratic Party Propagandist

One day following the injections, human cells were found alive in 132 of the hybrid embryos. Ten days later, 103 of them were still alive and growing. However, survival rates started dropping to the point that by day 19, only three of them were alive. The embryos that did survive, however, had a high percentage of human cells in their mix.

The researchers conducted this study as part of an effort to discover new methods of creating organs for those in need of transplants.

“This is one of the major problems in medicine — organ transplantation,” Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, one of the study’s co-authors, told NPR. “The demand for that is much higher than the supply.”

Despite the supposedly altruistic goal of the researchers, the study raised important questions concerning its ethics.

Do you support this kind of scientific research?

“My first question is: Why?” Kirstin Matthews of Rice University’s Baker Institute told NPR. “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.”

The most significant concern scientists who spoke with the outlet had is somebody pushing the study further by creating a baby out of such hybrid embryos. Some worried that the human cells could become part of the product creature’s brain, raising new concerns on legislating on issues surrounding the resulting being.

“Should it be regulated as human because it has a significant proportion of human cells in it? Or should it be regulated just as an animal? Or something else?” Matthews said. “At what point are you taking something and using it for organs when it actually is starting to think and have logic?”

A third concern that scientists who spoke with NPR shared was the resulting animals producing human sperm and eggs.

“Nobody really wants monkeys walking around with human eggs and human sperm inside them,” Stanford University bioethicist Hank Greely told NPR. “Because if a monkey with human sperm meets a monkey with human eggs, nobody wants a human embryo inside a monkey’s uterus.”

Related:
While Entire Nation Is Watching Eclipse, An Even Rarer Event Might Be Visible as the Sun Goes Dark

In 2015, the National Institutes of Health issued a ban on federal funding for research projects involving injecting human cells into animal ones to create half-animal and half-human organisms, according to the federal register.

In 2016 however, the NIH contemplated lifting the moratorium, which would permit taxpayer dollars to be used to fund such studies.

Truth and Accuracy

Submit a Correction →



We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Tags:
, , , , , ,
Share
News reporter and international affairs analyst published and syndicated in over 100 national and international outlets, including The National Interest, The Daily Caller, and The Western Journal. Covers international affairs, security, and U.S. politics. Master of Arts in Security Policy Studies candidate at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs
News reporter and international affairs analyst published and syndicated in over 100 national and international outlets, including The National Interest, The Daily Caller, and The Western Journal. Covers international affairs, security, and U.S. politics. Master of Arts in Security Policy Studies candidate at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs. Follow Andrew on Twitter: @RealAndrewJose
Education
Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service
Location
Washington, District of Columbia
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish, Tamil, Hindi, French, Russian
Topics of Expertise
International Politics, National Security, U.S. Politics




Conversation