First Time, Scientists Create Embryos
of a mixture of Pigs and Humans
Scientists succeeded in creating embryonic human and porcine mix for the first time.
The embryo consists of 99.999 percent and 0.001 percent pig cells to human cells.
The success has been warmly welcomed by scientists engaged in the field of genetics, medicine, and stem cells.
Nevertheless, a number of other scientists underscore the ethical challenges and unexpected impact of the controversial research.
Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte of the Salk Institute, who led the project explained, the human embryo is a mixture of pork and it was made with the technique of stem cell transplantation.
Human stem cells - cells that are capable of developing high potential into a variety of tissues - grafted into pig embryos.
Embryos with human stem cells and then put in the womb and allowed to develop pig for a month before aborted.
Within a month, scientists observed the development of pig and human cells.
Research shows, the process of making an embryo mix with the technique is very inefficient.
Of 2,075 embryos were transplanted, only 186 that can grow up to 28 days.
However, human cells visible function and potentially thrive.
"This is the first time seen growing human cells in large animals," said Belmonte told the BBC on Thursday (01/27/2017).
Problem inefficiency, Belmonte said, was related to the evolution of human and porcine far adrift.
Pig and human fetal development also differ greatly. Pigs only took 4 months from human embryos until the baby while it took 9 months.
"It's like a freeway where the car is moving faster than the others, there is a possibility of an accident," said Belmonte.
Potential and Challenges
There are a lot of potential when human cells can be developed in animal bodies.
Potential first, people can learn how to better treatment of disease.
If pigs could have a heart like a human organ, for example, then test the effectiveness of drugs for the treatment of diseases can get higher accuracy.
Another potential, people can learn better embryonic development thus increasing the understanding of fetal abnormalities during development.
Larger, humans can develop a specific organ in the body of the animal.
Organ developed - could be a kidney, liver, or pancreas - can be donated to the needy.
The need of donor organs is now quite high.
Every 10 minutes, one person waiting for a donor organ. Meanwhile, every day, 22 people die because of not receiving needed organs.
June Wu, lead author of the publication of this study in the journal Cells, said, "Gaining efficiency of 0.1 to 1 percent actually do."
"Even in the early development during the 28 days alone, there are thousands of human cells contained in the billions of cells in the embryo whole pig. Test it will be meaningful and useful," he added.
But to realize that potential, there are also a number of challenges.
To improve efficiency, for example, how?
Another thing, how to prevent human stem cells are not included in the area of the brain in the embryo?
If the stem cells into the area of the brain in the embryo, the pig would probably have had a number of characters and the ability of the human brain.
"So far we do not see any human cells in areas of the brain, do not we also can not erase that possibility," said Belmonte.
The success of the Rat
The study, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday (01/25/2017) reveal similar success in mice.
Edited rat genome so that the loss of genes that are in charge of forming the pancreas. Stem cells from other animals, rats, and then transplanted to the embryo.
Mouse embryo developed from the pancreas of mice. The pancreas was then implanted in rats to cope with diabetes.
It is expected that the human embryo is a mixture of pork and it could produce the same thing.
