Human-Animal Embryo's being grown to term in Japan... I am without words.
People usually have 2 kidneys 2 lungs 2 eyes 2 breasts a bicameral brain so maybe a living human volunteer wants to grow a second pancreas to save a loved ones life ?...our species has the right to know what experiments go on AND RIGHTS TO KNOW DANGERS of GMOs nukes chemicals and WMD stockpiles ANYWHERE
I read all the article. To me the goal is noble : provide organs that can be transplanted to humans. They say waiting lists are long... The team proceeds slowly and carefully. The objective isn't to create monters...
Japan is moving up from mice to rats to human experiments....I am on a list for stem cells from who knows where to grow a stronger heart chamber called the somewhat obtuse Ejection Fraction Study....probably I was moved down the list asking too many questions where the stem cells are obtained....when I ask if my own stem cells would be drawn from my body ....the answer was silent....I do not trust secrecy regarding human flesh in Japan or USA
I qyestion the whole field, from test tube babies,to the latest genetics of growing organs for transplant.
I question the whole field as 'is it necessary? As a race, at least in the affluent west, we are unable to accept that some people will not breed and that we all diel some very young, some prematurely, most old and knackered buut kept breathing, as opposed to living, by medical science.
There is no shortage of humans on the planet.
@slydr68 depends how you define living - for me, the ability to suck in air does not equate to living
Apparantly the goal is to grow a pancreas from a future transplant host own stem cells in the hybrid presumably kept stupid unaware of her/his reason for existence to cure diabetes just like the mouse cured by the rat hybrid already done in Japan
I just don't see a problem here. I think if a person worries about animal cruelty we should focus more on the great number of animals going extinct every day, about factory farms, about loss of habitat. Is it all right to raise an animal only for the sake of butchering it but wrong to raise one to save a human life or to save a person from suffering.
I wonder if the human cells have to come from the person who needs the organ...I imagine that there would still be an issue with transplant rejection otherwise...
Interesting to see if human organs grown in animals would complicate transplants even more with not only rejection but also infection, autoimmune issues, etc. of both the animal and the human...
Research like this does not necessarily end in a final use...but can open more doors of possibility...
always amazes me: at a few weeks human embryos are almost undistinguishable from tadpoles or even fish embryos.
Problem?