Scientists create a sheep that’s 15% human

[KashifAsrar]

From today's ToI.
Kashif


Scientists create a sheep that’s 15% human


Claudia Joseph




Scientists have created the world’s first human-sheep chimera — which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs. The sheep have 15% human cells and 85% animal cells — and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.
But the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race.
Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5 million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep’s foetus.
He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.
The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep’s foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant.
Scientists at King’s College, London, and the North East Stem Cell Institute in Newcastle have now applied to the HFEA, the government’s fertility watchdog, for permission to start work on the chimeras. At present 7,168 patients are waiting for an organ transplant in Britain alone, and two thirds of them are expected to die before an organ becomes available. DAILY MAIL, LONDON

Chimera: First hybrid sheep-man?

Like its name, chimera — an animal which has two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated in different zygotes — has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.
Now, professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, who perfected the technique, plans to match exactly a sheep to a transplant patient.
“We would take a couple of ounces of bone marrow cells from the patient. We would isolate the stem cells from them, inject them into the peritoneum of these animals and then these cells would get distributed throughout the metabolic system into the circulatory system of all the organs in the body,” he added. DAILY MAIL, LONDON

 

[A.Rahman]

very nice development; Science is the future!

 

[Awesome]

Let's see how long this sheep lasts.

 

[KashifAsrar]

True.
Let's see how long she lasts!
Kashif

 

[Lahori paa jee]

Perhaps many of you might have forgotten the pioneer in cloning technology ......... Dolly the sheep. Its almost 11 years now when this little sheep attracted the attention of the whole world and revolutionized the way and speed at which Biotechnology was progressing.

Dolly with her first lamb Bonnie

 

[JK!]

Here is an arguement I learnt in Biology for when people say you are 99% related to chimpanzees.

You are also 76% Cauliflower.

Why, because DNA is formed from 4 basic compounds called nucleotides so it is very likely to have similar DNA to animals because of this.

As to the posts well science is going a little bit too far with crossing animal and human DNA in my opinion.

 

[Lahori paa jee]

Issue of ethics and moral limitations will remain in discussions but i feel we should not be bothered by all this and focus on the beneficial aspects only

 

[KashifAsrar]

For the sake of discussion, following are the two opinions about this news, printed in 27th March 2007 ToI.
Kashif


Scientists create a sheep that has 15 per cent human cells

TIMES VIEW


It will lead to self-annihilation

In The Island of Dr Moreau, H G Wells took us through an incredible and tragic story of an eccentric researcher who tries his hand at creating human-animal hybrids through vivisection. Dr Moreau’s mission — going against the laws of nature — pursued by researchers today with access to modern techniques like cloning could lead to consequences worse than tragic; for technology as an instrument of oppression can lead to self-annihilation.
Advances in reproductive technology, for instance, only mimic natural laws in the laboratory; they do not venture to create a new species. Sperm-egg fertilisation takes place in a laboratory petri dish instead of inside the body, but the fertilised entity is then transplanted in the womb, aiding natural processes wherever it is necessary. Interspecies cloning, on the other hand, involves the creation of an entirely new freak species, and that too, for the purpose of organ farming. It is not just unethical but selfdestructive to take decisions on the assumption that all other species exist just so that humans can exploit them for their own ends.
If interspecies cloning is being promoted to improve human health, the ideal is flawed. Xeno-transplantation — of organs from animals to humans — have in the past fatally infected recipients with strange viruses. Cloned hybrid species, claim doctors, can yield organs that, when transplanted to humans, remain free of immuno-rejection; but they could be a serious source of other kinds of infection — like latent viruses turning mutant and dangerous, for instance. Often, intimate humananimal interface has spread diseases like SARS. Feeding cows with mammalian meat waste gave the cows a neuron-degenerative disease. The infected cows in turn gave humans the mad cow disease.
Cloning expert Ian Wilmut and his team should let Dr Moreau’s bestial world remain confined to the realm of science fiction. In the real world, we have the choice to look at civilised alternatives to interspecies cloning — like stem cell banks, for instance, and lab-grown organs — that protect the right to dignity of all species.

COUNTER VIEW
Animal organs will solve transplant problem

Ganesh Solanki


If you think humans shouldn’t interfere with the order of nature, consider what is going on now. More than 500 people in Tamil Nadu say they’ve sold their kidneys to organ brokers, violating a ban on such sales since 1994. There are persistent and credible reports of human organs being harvested from death row prisoners in China. Foreigners are flocking to India, Pakistan and China to get organ transplants at cheap rates. American academics have identified towns and villages across Asia as “kidney zones” — where hundreds of impoverished locals bear a diagonal scar marking the removal of an organ.
Organ donation after death is extremely rare in India, and most transplanted organs are coming from poor people selling them for cash. According to a report carried by TOI, most Indian organ donors are women while recipients are men. Bans have no effect, a thriving trade in organs continues. Can a situation where many Indians, mostly poor, mostly women endanger their health so that rich people, mostly men, many foreigners get an extended lease on their lives be sanctified as the order of nature? It sounds more like a vampire cult.
The only way out is if organs compatible with the human body were to become widely available without extracting a gruesome human cost.
Technology points the way, in the form of animals growing organs with human genetic material. Esmail Zanjani’s work, creating a sheep liver having a large proportion of human cells, suggests exciting possibilities for the future.
Animal organs could soon become compatible with the human body and available for transplants. One can conceive of large farms where animals will be bred to yield organs for transplant. If we can eat animal flesh and organs with impunity there can be nothing wrong with using animal organs for transplant, as long as it’s done humanely. Rigorous scientific trials are needed, of course, to ensure that no dangerous animal viruses are unleashed on human beings.

 

[KashifAsrar]

I agree with Times view at the moment. Although some of the point in counter argument such as 'creating a sheep liver having a large proportion of human cells, suggests exciting possibilities for the future' and 'If we can eat animal flesh and organs with impunity there can be nothing wrong with using animal organs for transplant, as long as it’s done humanely' are reasonable enough.
Kashif

 

[khanbhai]

this is not new stuff

 

[KashifAsrar]

edited............

 

[genmirajborgza786]

edited..........