Tornado Alley (PROG)

[chunga1]

Scientists create animals that are part-human

pretty clueless aint ya alex

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7681252/#

Stem cell experiments leading to genetic mixing of species and unsettling mixes of species, evoking the
Greek myth of the monstrous chimera, which
was part lion, part goat and part serpent.

In the past two years, scientists have created
pigs with human blood, fused rabbit eggs with
human DNA and injected human stem cells to
make paralyzed mice walk.

Particularly worrisome to some scientists are
the nightmare scenarios that could arise from
the mixing of brain cells: What if a human mind
somehow got trapped inside a sheep’s head?

The “idea that human neuronal cells might
participate in 'higher order' brain functions in
a nonhuman animal, however unlikely that
may be, raises concerns that need to be
considered,” the academies report warned.

Mice with human brains
In January, an informal ethics committee at
Stanford University endorsed a proposal to
create mice with brains nearly completely
made of human brain cells. Stem cell scientist
Irving Weissman said his experiment could
provide unparalleled insight into how the
human brain develops and how degenerative
brain diseases like Parkinson’s progress.

Stanford law professor Hank Greely, who
chaired the ethics committee, said the board
was satisfied that the size and shape of the
mouse brain would prevent the human cells
from creating any traits of humanity. Just in
case, Greely said, the committee
recommended closely monitoring the mice’s
behavior and immediately killing any that
display human-like behavior.

The Academies’ report recommends that each
institution involved in stem cell research
create a formal, standing committee to
specifically oversee the work, including
experiments that mix human and animal cells.

Weissman, who has already created mice with
1 percent human brain cells, said he has no
immediate plans to make mostly human
mouse brains, but wanted to get ethical
clearance in any case. A formal Stanford
committee that oversees research at the
university would also need to authorize the
experiment.

Harvesting human organs from sheep
Few human-animal hybrids are as advanced as
the sheep created by another stem cell
scientist, Esmail Zanjani, and his team at the
University of Nevada-Reno. They want to one
day turn sheep into living factories for human
advertisementadvertisement organs and tissues and along the way create
cutting-edge lab animals to more effectively
test experimental drugs.

Zanjani is most optimistic about the sheep
that grow partially human livers after human
stem cells are injected into them while they are
still in the womb. Most of the adult sheep in
his experiment contain about 10 percent
human liver cells, though a few have as much
as 40 percent, Zanjani said.

Because the human liver regenerates, the
research raises the possibility of transplanting
partial organs into people whose livers are
failing.

Zanjani must first ensure no animal diseases
would be passed on to patients. He also must
find an efficient way to completely separate
the human and sheep cells, a tough task
because the human cells aren’t clumped
together but are rather spread throughout the
sheep’s liver.

Zanjani and other stem cell scientists defend
their research and insist they aren’t creating
monsters — or anything remotely human.

“We haven’t seen them act as anything but
sheep,” Zanjani said.

Zanjani’s goals are many years from being
realized.

He’s also had trouble raising funds, and the U.
S. Department of Agriculture is investigating
the university over allegations made by
another researcher that the school
mishandled its research sheep. Zanjani
declined to comment on that matter, and
university officials have stood by their
practices.

Allegations about the proper treatment of lab
animals may take on strange new meanings as
scientists work their way up the evolutionary
chart. First, human stem cells were injected
into bacteria, then mice and now sheep. Such
research blurs biological divisions between
species that couldn’t until now be breached.

Combining monkeys and people
Drawing ethical boundaries that no research
appears to have crossed yet, the Academies
recommend a prohibition on mixing human
stem cells with embryos from monkeys and
other primates. But even that policy
recommendation isn’t tough enough for some
researchers.

advertisementadvertisement “The boundary is going to push further into
larger animals,” New York Medical College
professor Stuart Newman said. “That’s just
asking for trouble.”

Newman and anti-biotechnology activist
Jeremy Rifkin have been tracking this issue for
the last decade and were behind a rather
creative assault on both interspecies mixing
and the government’s policy of patenting
individual human genes and other living
matter.

Years ago, the two applied for a patent for
what they called a “humanzee,” a hypothetical
— but very possible — creation that was half
human and chimp.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office finally
denied their application this year, ruling that
the proposed invention was too human:
Constitutional prohibitions against slavery
prevents the patenting of people.

Newman and Rifkin were delighted, since they
never intended to create the creature and
instead wanted to use their application to
protest what they see as science and
commerce turning people into commodities.

And that’s a point, Newman warns, that stem
scientists are edging closer to every day:
“Once you are on the slope, you tend to move
down it.”