Monkey-Human Embryos Created In Lab For First Time

[maximus otter]

In a move that some scientists say raises serious ethical questions, researchers have for the first time embryos that are a hybrid of human and monkey cells.

Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratories at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, says that the research could one day slash waiting lists of organ transplants.

Writing the scientific journal Cell, he describes how his team injected 25 iPS, or induced pluripotent stem cells, from humans into a number of macaque monkey embryos.

Over 100 of the embryos remained viable, enabling the scientists to study how the different types of cells interacted.

The human-monkey chimeric embryos were monitored in the lab for 19 days before being destroyed

"Our goal is not to generate any new organism, any monster," Belmonte stressed. "And we are not doing anything like that. We are trying to understand how cells from different organisms communicate with one another.

"This knowledge will allow us to go back now and try to re-engineer these pathways that are successful for allowing appropriate development of human cells in these other animals."

However, Professor Julian Savulescu, a director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and co-director of the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford, [said] that the research "opens Pandora’s box to human-nonhuman chimaeras".

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/hybrid-monkey-human-embryos-created-23922632

maximus otter

 

[Lb8535]

In a move that some scientists say raises serious ethical questions, researchers have for the first time embryos that are a hybrid of human and monkey cells.

Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratories at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, says that the research could one day slash waiting lists of organ transplants.

Writing the scientific journal Cell, he describes how his team injected 25 iPS, or induced pluripotent stem cells, from humans into a number of macaque monkey embryos.

Over 100 of the embryos remained viable, enabling the scientists to study how the different types of cells interacted.

The human-monkey chimeric embryos were monitored in the lab for 19 days before being destroyed

"Our goal is not to generate any new organism, any monster," Belmonte stressed. "And we are not doing anything like that. We are trying to understand how cells from different organisms communicate with one another.

"This knowledge will allow us to go back now and try to re-engineer these pathways that are successful for allowing appropriate development of human cells in these other animals."

However, Professor Julian Savulescu, a director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and co-director of the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford, [said] that the research "opens Pandora’s box to human-nonhuman chimaeras".

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/hybrid-monkey-human-embryos-created-23922632

maximus otter

Film treatment in the works!

 

[Nosmo King]

In a move that some scientists say raises serious ethical questions, researchers have for the first time embryos that are a hybrid of human and monkey cells.

Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratories at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, says that the research could one day slash waiting lists of organ transplants.

Writing the scientific journal Cell, he describes how his team injected 25 iPS, or induced pluripotent stem cells, from humans into a number of macaque monkey embryos.

Over 100 of the embryos remained viable, enabling the scientists to study how the different types of cells interacted.

The human-monkey chimeric embryos were monitored in the lab for 19 days before being destroyed

"Our goal is not to generate any new organism, any monster," Belmonte stressed. "And we are not doing anything like that. We are trying to understand how cells from different organisms communicate with one another.

"This knowledge will allow us to go back now and try to re-engineer these pathways that are successful for allowing appropriate development of human cells in these other animals."

However, Professor Julian Savulescu, a director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and co-director of the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford, [said] that the research "opens Pandora’s box to human-nonhuman chimaeras".

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/hybrid-monkey-human-embryos-created-23922632

maximus otter

Does anyone remember the 1991 horror/drama series 'chimera'?

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0101577/

 

[Stormkhan]

Film treatment in the works!

Too late!
I think there's a few sci-fi movies which feature clones being used to 'grow human organs' for harvest. They inevitably arc to the ethical ramifications. Perhaps the image of big bags of flesh - not modelled on actual human shape - which are home to various organs might not be as cinematic but is more likely.

Hero is guided around The Facility by Mad Scientist.
Mad Scientist: "... and this bag is 1112-2988. It is growing lungs. The one next to it, 1112-2989, provides trachea."
Hero: "But that's awful! They are living creatures!"
Mad Scientist: "Er. No, they're not. That's the whole point. Why grow a full human when you can just grow the organs. These bags may look horrible," [Insert shot of rows of flesh-coloured sacks] "but they are only organic vegetable-beds, if you will. We harvest the vegetables from them. What exactly is your problem?"
Hero: "But they are living creatures!"
Mad Scientist: "What? Have you not been listening? They aren't creatures. They don't look like one, they don't work like one. If you want to take one home as a pet, then knock yourself out, kiddo, but they're expensive and aren't exactly fun to keep! (sotto voce) Save me from idiots!"

Don't get me wrong, I think this does raise many ethical questions. But some are based on what people think is being done rather than what is possible. It's like ordering that no one is allowed to work on a star-drive fusion core for more than one hour straight; yeah, you got health and safety on that one ... but no one has actually made a star-drive fusion core so, well, yeah ...

 

[GNC]

Whatever happened to the scheme to use pigs to grow human transplant organs? Did that result in anything? (No obvious jokes, please!). Is the monkey thing much different to pigs, or did the monkey grow out of the pig? So to speak.

 

[Nosmo King]

Whatever happened to the scheme to use pigs to grow human transplant organs? Did that result in anything? (No obvious jokes, please!). Is the monkey thing much different to pigs, or did the monkey grow out of the pig? So to speak.

Or the ear on the mouse

 

[GNC]

The mouse ear actually happened, though, but I'm not sure the pig organs did. It went a bit quiet. Nobody squealed.

 

[Stormkhan]

Whatever happened to the scheme to use pigs to grow human transplant organs?

This series of experiments have replaced the pig ones. As far as I can make out, pig 'hosts' are generally close to human structures so great for skin graft opportunities but simian cells are better for reproductive/organ work.
The mouse/ear 'thing' above was a graft rather than cell growth.

 

[Nosmo King]

This series of experiments have replaced the pig ones. As far as I can make out, pig 'hosts' are generally close to human structures so great for skin graft opportunities but simian cells are better for reproductive/organ work.

Monkeys are generally pretty small in comparison to humans though.

 

[GNC]

This series of experiments have replaced the pig ones. As far as I can make out, pig 'hosts' are generally close to human structures so great for skin graft opportunities but simian cells are better for reproductive/organ work.
The mouse/ear 'thing' above was a graft rather than cell growth.

Thanks for the info, so this is ongoing research going back a while? It does sound like the road to Never Let Me Go in real life.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Does anyone remember the 1991 horror/drama series 'chimera'?

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0101577/

Or Planet of the Apes?
"You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

 

[Analogue Boy]

Well, Elon Musk created a Neuralink Monkey that can play Pong with mind power alone but he missed a trick. If it was playing Donkey Kong, we’d all want one.

 

[Stormkhan]

What Elon "NASA comes to me" Musk?

 

[Victory]

This series with Charles Dance was worth a watch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Born_(TV_series)

 

[asar]

This is not exactly the first case of humanoid hybrids. The Sumerian accounts give a sequence of failed attempts leading the production of the modern human

 

[ramonmercado]

A related story. Apparently the crab-eating macaque (Macaca fascicularis) makes a good substitute for humans. I wonder if you can find them on Cromer Beach.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Scientists have grown embryo-like models using monkey stem cells for the first time, which when implanted in surrogate monkey 'mothers' appear to progress through the earliest stages of gestation.


Human versions of these models have already been created from stem cells, but until recently a 14-day limit applied to scientists growing them for research. What's more, transplanting them into a human surrogate is presently way out of the question, making it difficult to use the models to study embryonic development under real-world conditions.

In search of an alternative approach, team of Chinese researchers have turned to the most closely-related species they can: the crab-eating macaque (Macaca fascicularis).

https://www.sciencealert.com/world-first-monkeys-fall-pregnant-with-engineered-embryo-structures

 

[Mythopoeika]

Isn't this the start of the Planet of the Apes series?

 

[ramonmercado]

Isn't this the start of the Planet of the Apes series?

That's Cromer Beach!"

 

[Herr Cloaca]

Something I've always wanted to know, and have never dared to ask, is what would happen if a human were to shag a monkey or vice versa? What would the resulting offspring be?

 

[Mythopoeika]

Something I've always wanted to know, and have never dared to ask, is what would happen if a human were to shag a monkey or vice versa? What would the resulting offspring be?

Let us know how you get on!

Seriously, though - I should think there is enough DNA divergence to prevent that from happening via 'natural' means.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Something I've always wanted to know, and have never dared to ask, is what would happen if a human were to shag a monkey...

They'd get arrested, or shot. Possibly both.

...What would the resulting offspring be?

An infinite number, addressing their keyboards infinitely.

So - not much change really.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Something I've always wanted to know, and have never dared to ask, is what would happen if a human were to shag a monkey or vice versa? What would the resulting offspring be?

Well rumours persisted that a liaison between a drunken Haitian farmer and a particularly seductive simian was how AIDS started.

 

[Stormkhan]

Something I've always wanted to know, and have never dared to ask, is what would happen if a human were to shag a monkey or vice versa? What would the resulting offspring be?

As far as I'm aware, and I am by no means an expert, the difference in DNA has nothing to do with viability in reproduction.
A horse is close 'enough' in reproductive organs and DNA to a zebra to create a zebroid, but you're asking (in a similar context) could a camel breed with a horse.
Same sort of animal, see, but not the same thing?
A human could shag a monkey or vice versa, but there's a very low chance of actual viable production. Or else bestiality over the centuries would've become a bit more ... problematic*.

* See also H.P. Lovecraft's "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family".

 

[maximus otter]

…what would happen if a human were to shag a monkey or vice versa? What would the resulting offspring be?

The apparent basis for my thirty-year career.

maximus otter

 

[Tunn11]

Let us know how you get on!

Seriously, though - I should think there is enough DNA divergence to prevent that from happening via 'natural' means.

As a retired librarian and Terry Pratchett fan, this is the point at which I should say; "OOOOK!" *

*You are using the M word, and while the research was on monkeys I would think that any chance of a "natural" hybrid would be the liaison between a human and an ape as they are closer genetically. You may get away with it with a Bonobo but I wouldn't try it with a Gorilla.

 

[ChasFink]

You may get away with it with a Bonobo but I wouldn't try it with a Gorilla.

Yes, the bonobos are generally quite a randy and promiscuous lot. Still, I believe they are still far enough away from humans that offspring are unlikely.

 

[Stormkhan]

Considering the strength of a chimp, I don't think even considering a romantic evening with 'extras' would be clever.
Try forcing your attentions on an unwilling female who, literally, could pull your arms out your sockets and you have to be mental - 'scientific experimentation' excuse or not.
It ranks with crazy scientific experimentation along with "I wonder what I'd feel if I tried sticking my willy in a radioactive goop."

 

[Ogdred Weary]

It ranks with crazy scientific experimentation along with "I wonder what I'd feel if I tried sticking my willy in a radioactive goop."

A lifetime of Super Hero narrative suggest you would become Spidercock Man or something similar.

 

[Erinaceus]

Ilya Ivanov's attempts to develop a humanzee in the 1920s.

Russian biologist, Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov was a master in the field of animal hybridization and artificial insemination. He conducted a number of experiments to create mixed-breed animals such as the Zedonk (a hybrid of a zebra and a donkey) and a guinea pig-mouse.
However, among all his peculiar experiments, his proposal for a humanzee (a hybrid of human and chimpanzee) was the most sensational and controversial of his career.

https://interestingengineering.com/...sian-scientist-who-tried-to-create-a-humanzee