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Chinese Scientists Have Successfully Created Monkey-Pig Hybrids

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Around the world, millions of people are on the “waiting list” to get an organ transplant; some die because they don’t get an organ in time. Chinese scientists are working on finding a solution to the insufficient organ supply. Recently, scientists successfully bred two monkey-pig hybrids as part of research to see if animals can grow human organs for transplantations.

Unfortunately, the two chimera piglets died within a week after they were born. The baby pigs looked like normal piglets, but they had macaque monkey DNA in their liver, heart, lungs, spleen, and skin. “This is the first report of full-term pig-monkey chimeras,” said Tang Hai of the SRLab in Beijing.

Chinese Scientists Have Successfully Created Monkey-Pig Hybrids
Credit: State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology/SALK Institute

Hai and his team genetically modified cynomolgus monkey cells to produce a fluorescent protein that allowed the scientists to track the cells and descendant cells visually. These modified cells were then injected into pig embryos five days after fertilization. More than 4,000 embryos were implanted into a sow using IVF. From these thousands of embryos, only ten piglets were born, of which two were “chimeras.” In the two chimeras, monkey cells made up only 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 10,000 of the remaining pig cells.

All ten baby pigs died within a week of being born. The scientists don’t know why the piglets died. However, since all ten pigs died, whether or not they were chimeric, Hai believes the reason they died may be because of IVF and not the chimerism.

The researchers published the study in Protein and Cell. The team said that the results got them one step closer to their goal of creating tissue-specific functional organs and cells in a large animal model. The scientists plan to repeat the experiments to develop healthy animals with higher portions of monkey DNA and, eventually, an animal with a healthy organ containing 100% monkey DNA.

Chinese Scientists Have Successfully Created Monkey-Pig Hybrids
Credit: State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology/SALK Institute

Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell biologist at the University of California, Davis said:

Given the extremely low chimeric efficiency and the deaths of all the animals, I actually see this as fairly discouraging.

This type of research is controversial. Knoepfler is one of the many people who believe that this method of growing organs for transplantation within animals is not a viable solution. Whether or not this development brings up ethical concerns, it could prove useful for organ transplantation in the future. In the UK, over 6,000 patients are currently on the “waiting list” for organs, according to the NHS Blood and Transplant organization.

What do you think about scientists making hybrid animals for organ transplantations?

The post Chinese Scientists Have Successfully Created Monkey-Pig Hybrids appeared first on Intelligent Living.


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