Scientists attempting to harvest human organs in pigs by creating human-pig embryo
Donor shortage is a srious problem facing the health care providers. Livers, corneas, hearts etc. are in short supply for implanting into people suffering from various disorders or malfunctioning organs.
University of California have come up with a scheme to grow human organs in animals, like pig for later harvesting. Animals will serve as surrogates and once they provide the organ they are discarded.
This is exactly the process according to the cited site at the conclusion of this post,
"To create the “chimeric” embryos, the scientists used a gene-editing technique known as Crispr to knock out a section of the pig’s DNA necessary for the embryo to develop a pancreas. "
Looks like pancreas is one organ that has the best chance of being grown, as pig themselves have no competing mechanism, whereas for other organs the locals(pig) can compete against the guest(human) and win against.
Here is what they are worried about according to a well know research institution,
“You are basically creating a vacuum, a hole, so that the human cells respond to the right cues, they make a pancreas. The pig cells can’t. But what we don’t know, and this is what they need to look at, is whether the human cells can also contribute substantially to other tissues, and particularly they are worried about the brain,”
Sure enough, pigs with human brains!
Read the fascinating story here:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2016/jun/07/human-pig-chimeras-history-xenotransplantation
More fascination here:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jun/05/organ-research-scientists-combine-human-stem-cells-and-pig-dna
Donor shortage is a srious problem facing the health care providers. Livers, corneas, hearts etc. are in short supply for implanting into people suffering from various disorders or malfunctioning organs.
University of California have come up with a scheme to grow human organs in animals, like pig for later harvesting. Animals will serve as surrogates and once they provide the organ they are discarded.
This is exactly the process according to the cited site at the conclusion of this post,
"To create the “chimeric” embryos, the scientists used a gene-editing technique known as Crispr to knock out a section of the pig’s DNA necessary for the embryo to develop a pancreas. "
Looks like pancreas is one organ that has the best chance of being grown, as pig themselves have no competing mechanism, whereas for other organs the locals(pig) can compete against the guest(human) and win against.
Here is what they are worried about according to a well know research institution,
“You are basically creating a vacuum, a hole, so that the human cells respond to the right cues, they make a pancreas. The pig cells can’t. But what we don’t know, and this is what they need to look at, is whether the human cells can also contribute substantially to other tissues, and particularly they are worried about the brain,”
Sure enough, pigs with human brains!
Read the fascinating story here:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2016/jun/07/human-pig-chimeras-history-xenotransplantation
More fascination here:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jun/05/organ-research-scientists-combine-human-stem-cells-and-pig-dna
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