Scientists Growing Human Organs in Pigs: “We Think There Is Very Low Potential for a Human Brain to Grow”
June 6th, 2016Via: BBC:
The main concern is that the human cells might migrate to the developing pig’s brain and make it, in some way, more human.
Pablo Ross says this is unlikely but is a key reason why the research is proceeding with such caution: “We think there is very low potential for a human brain to grow, but this is something we will be investigating.”
His team has previously injected human stem cells into pig embryos but without first creating the genetic niche. Prof Ross said although they later found human cells in several parts of the developing foetus, they “struggled to compete” with the pig cells. By deleting a key gene involved in the creation of the pig pancreas, they hope the human cells will have more success creating a human-like pancreas.
Other teams in the United States have created human-pig chimeric embryos but none has allowed the foetuses to be born.
Again, I am reminded of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and the pigoons therein. (http://tinyurl.com/z2qz66n) When that book came out in 2003, I thought some of her predictions sounded a little goofy, in the sense of too far fetched. Silly me, I should never underestimate how perverted humans can be.
I’m reminded of the ‘Book of Jasher’ (4:18), thought to date from the 1600s:
…and the sons of men in those days took from the cattle of the earth, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other…
(From http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/apo/jasher/4.htm)
I am reminded of _If I Ran the Zoo_ by Dr. Seuss.