Stem Cell Researchers Can Now Combine Animal and Human Embryos In The US (sciencemag.org) 92
Slashdot reader sciencehabit quotes an article from Science magazine: The National Institutes of Health announced that the agency soon expects to lift a moratorium on funding for controversial experiments that add human stem cells to animal embryos, creating an organism that is part animal, part human. Instead, these so-called chimera studies will undergo an extra layer of ethical review but may ultimately be allowed to proceed.
Although scientists who support such research welcomed the move, some were left trying to parse exactly what the draft policy will mean. It is "a step in the right direction," says Sean Wu, a stem cell researcher at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who co-authored a letter to Science last year opposing the moratorium. But "we still don't know what the outcome will be case by case," he adds. However, some see the proposal as opening up research in some areas that had been potentially off-limits.
Experiments could include using animals to grow human organs for transplants, although according to the article, some scientists "worry that the experiments could produce, say, a supersmart mouse."
Although scientists who support such research welcomed the move, some were left trying to parse exactly what the draft policy will mean. It is "a step in the right direction," says Sean Wu, a stem cell researcher at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who co-authored a letter to Science last year opposing the moratorium. But "we still don't know what the outcome will be case by case," he adds. However, some see the proposal as opening up research in some areas that had been potentially off-limits.
Experiments could include using animals to grow human organs for transplants, although according to the article, some scientists "worry that the experiments could produce, say, a supersmart mouse."
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I hope all chimeras welcome their new ... (Score:2)
... human overlords.
Wow this is great (Score:3)
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Oh, the right are pretty pissed off!
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http://www.onenewsnow.com/scie... [onenewsnow.com] (The AFA's news site, so it's not just some loner's blog)
In an aggressive move before the end of its second term, the Obama administration announced Thursday that is wants to allow scientists to engineer human-animal hybrids.
This latest attempt by President Barack Obama of reportedly seeking to manipulate and destroy human life through unethical experiments comes after his earlier move to overturn limits set by the Bush administration
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"I can't see the left getting pissed off though. They've not objected to chimera research before."
Oh yes you can: http://www.greens.org/s-r/20/2... [greens.org]
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A seventeen-year-old paper that makes no mention of chimeras, and only touches on transgenics, and published on a glorified blog that no-one has ever heard of?
I used ONN as an example because they are an example of 'the right' but not 'far right' - they aren't somewhere like, say, WND or JW that runs every day with claims that Obama is a Muslim spy and IS are training terrorists in Mexico. ONN is run by the AFA - who, though perhaps not the most influential organisation within the faction known as 'the righ
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Human chimera tech is a little too new for the activists to have focused on yet, but judging from the left's Absolutely No Under Any Circumstances Whatever attitude to a few tweaks to vegetable genomes, even in non-corporate aid projects like Golden Rice, er can bet that chimera tech will be their next target.
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Actually, a human genetic material chimera has been discussed for decades. The issue has been so hashed over the concept is firmly ingrained in pop culture. The link to an advert for a Scott Sigler book written years ago to illustrate the pop culture take on human chimera fears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRY9eWlmBWM
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Something that will piss off the right (because of embryonic stem cell research) and the left. (Because of animal/human hybrids.) The left and right will finally agree on something.
After people can use this technique to get rejection-fee transplant organs without a waiting list, Luddites will quickly be selected out of the human species.
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That's what you'd hope but the jehovas witnesses are still here with out blood transfusions
How many of them are left, though? And they have zero political influence.We need to arrange things so the No GMOers meet the same fate.
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Fievel (Score:2)
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The super-smart mouse population keeps itself in check by trying to take over the world instead of breeding more super-smart mice.
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There's that, but there's also the fact that half of the super-smart mouse population just goes "narf!" 95% of the time.
Insane is Insane. (Score:1)
I can't grow a few poppies for pain relief but these motherfuckers can play God in which they don't believe in anyway.
Fuck these motherfuckers.
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Dude, you complain about these guys playing god and you're trying to freakin' grow puppies? That's not how dogs work, man!
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That was so funny I slapped your mom.
Extra-dimensional beings? (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, so this is how we get all those mice that advance quantum physics for us.
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Sure. Advance quantum physics for us.
combination (Score:1)
The National Institutes of Drumpf announced that the agency soon expects to lift a moratorium on funding for controversial experiments that add human stem cells to drumpf embryos, creating an organism that is part drumpf, part human. Instead, these so-called chimera studies will undergo an extra layer of ethical review but may ultimately be allowed to proceed.
Narf! (Score:2)
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
I think so, but with birth rates on the decline, how will the giraffes keep their heads up?
About time. (Score:2, Insightful)
I suggest anyone who opposes this research be sent to meet a few people on organ waiting lists. Let them tell those patients why they must be allowed to die.
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very nice, raising straw man for issues of tech that don't exist.
Instead we can grow spare organs on people like you, because you care. What? You're not willing? Tell that to the patients waiting for organs why they must be allowed to die. You selfish bastard you.
Re:About time. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a great approach for discerning medical ethics. At the point your justification for medical experiments is, "in the long term there could be (as yet undemonstrated) major benefits" I don't think there is a single experiment you could not rationalize.
God, schmod (Score:2)
I want my monkey man!
Bad time for religion? (Score:2)
As an atheist I treat all religions equally and this does present some rather profound religious challenges. Specifically when a person had a donated organ in them that was grown in an animal that conflicts with their belief system...such as a pig, pig DNA even in the smallest amounts would still exist.
Now if a portion of a pig is in a person can that person still be Jewish or Muslim? how about an organ grown in a cow if a person is Hindu? -Now before you label me a troll just hold your horses and hear me
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It's not breaking new ground in this regard - there are already established laws for handling situations like that. There are some Christian churches that forbid all non-trivial medical treatment (it undermines faith, apparently), and there are the JWs and their strange religious doctrine forbidding blood transfusion, and with it many forms of major surgery.
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I think secular society will have a bigger problem with this once we realize that chimeras will allow a slew of new pathogens to adapt to the point where they can spread to humans.
Oh gawds!!! animal hueman hrbridz? (Score:1)
Smarter Mice (Score:1)
God knows we could use some smarter mice.
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There you go. [imgur.com] (SFW?)
How dangerous? (Score:2)
What's the problem? (Score:2)
Hidden assumption (Score:2)
Hmmm (Score:2)
It's happening! (Score:2)
it's finally happening! [youtube.com]