Human-Animal Hybrids Made in Labs for Organ Harvesting, Are You For or Against This?

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

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I have to say I'm against it, it's not natural or fair to the animals/hybrids involved, and I understand it's just being done in an attempt to harvest "human" organs for transplants. What are your thoughts about the creation of animal-human hybrids in laboratories?

Building on a controversial breakthrough made in 2017, scientists announced on Saturday that they have created the second successful human-animal hybrids: sheep embryos that are are 0.01-percent human by cell count.

The embryos, which were not allowed to develop past 28 days of age, move researchers a small step closer to perhaps growing human organs for medical transplant.

Every hour, six people in the United States are added to the national waiting list for organ transplants—and each day, 22 people on the list die waiting. In the U.S. alone, more than a hundred thousand people need heart transplants each year, but only about 2,000 receive one.

Increasingly Human

To make chimeras, researchers isolate one animal's stem cells, which can develop into any cell type in the body. They then inject some stem cells from one species into the embryo of another—a tricky procedure to get right.

If the embryo's DNA is hacked so that it does not grow a particular organ, the interloping cells would be the only ones that could fill in the gap. In this way, researchers could grow a human liver inside of a living pig, for example.

Stem-cell experts lauded the human-pig study, but they noted that the pig embryos' counts of human cells—about one in a hundred thousand—were too low for successful organ transplants.

On Saturday at the 2018 American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Austin, Texas, researcher Pablo Ross of the University of California, Davis, announced that he and his colleagues have fine-tuned the procedure—boosting human cell counts in sheep embryos to one in ten thousand.

“We think that that's still not probably enough to generate an organ,” Ross said during a press briefing. About one percent of the embryo would have to be human for the organ transplant to work, The Guardian reports.

And to prevent immune rejection, extra steps would be needed to ensure that leftover bits of animal viruses are struck from the pig or sheep's DNA. But the work shows progress toward more viable organs.

Ethical Ramifications

Ross says that the research could be accelerated if it were better funded. The U.S. National Institutes of Health currently forbid public funding of human-animal hybrids, though it signaled in 2016 that it might lift the moratorium. (So far, private donors have funded early research.)

As work continues, ethical scrutiny will also surely intensify. Ross and his colleagues acknowledge the controversial nature of their work, but they also say that they're moving cautiously.
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More HERE.
 

Speaking only for me, I'm against it and see it as an abuse of power by the human race.

On the other hand some folks may feel that it falls under Genesis 1:26 - And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
 
My only concern would be if the animal was suffering. If there is no suffering, then I see no problem
 

Traveler said:
My only concern would be if the animal was suffering. If there is no suffering, then I see no problem
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What do you mean by suffering? We raise and slaughter untold billions of animals for the sole good of man. If you want to thank a Bible verse for that OK. That is just the way it is.
I am all for it. To get all religious, God gave us a brain for a reason, or if you wish, we evolved into an incredible learning machine. Furthering our knowledge base is simple survival of the species. There is very little to no research that should be banned. I am reasonably certain that we will see human clones or perhaps biomechanical clone in the next century if not before.
 
Frankly, it creeps me out. So they are only allowing the embryo to develop for a month, but what if it somehow survived?? A part human-part sheep??? Sheeple. Ick.
 
It does "feel" wrong somehow. Everything new and mind blowing seems wrong at first. Scary.

However, I have heard-There is nothing new under the sun.

I think people at one time thought it unnatural to fly in airplanes, to have a nose job, boob job or any kind of reconstrutive surgery whether cosmetic or medically necessary. Artificial insemination; all these marvels were once considered demonic, unnatural, evil, etc.

I don't have a problem with it at all, but they must be very careful. There must be security standards more strict than we have ever seen before.

Also, I don't think this will be available to the average person. It may get to the point that along with other forms of genetic engineering, only special groups would benefit.

Not sure about how that would work, but considering the greed of humans being what it is, I doubt it would be an option for most of the population for a long, long time, if ever.

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Traveler said:
My only concern would be if the animal was suffering. If there is no suffering, then I see no problem
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Robusta said:
What do you mean by suffering? We raise and slaughter untold billions of animals for the sole good of man. If you want to thank a Bible verse for that OK. That is just the way it is.
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Suffering is pain. If there is no pain, then there is no suffering. Quite simple.

I did not mention any bible verse. I don't understand why you would think that.
 
C'est Moi said:
Frankly, it creeps me out. So they are only allowing the embryo to develop for a month, but what if it somehow survived?? A part human-part sheep??? Sheeple. Ick.
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How could the embryo possibly survive ? Researchers are working in a lab and they control every minute of the embryo's existence.
But, for the sake of argument, let's say that the embryo did survive. The animal would look every bit exactly like a sheep (or a pig if that was used). Seriously, we are not talking about a sheep with a human head, nor a man's body with a sheep's head. If the animal was turned loose in a flock of sheep, no-one could pick it out from all the others. The genetic percentage of the animal is only 1/100 th part human DNA.
 
I think it is a positive step in medical science. If we discount all the Hollywood-inspired "mad scientist" scenarios, and just see it for what it is, it is no worse than organ transplants.

For all those who are against it, how would you feel if your life or the life of a loved one could be saved by this type of transplant, when nothing else would work? Would you still be against it? From the description, they are talking about the development and transplantation of tiny cells, not the creation of animals which are monsters.
 
Apparently, no one here has ever viewed "The Fly" either with Vincent Price or Jeffrey Goldblum? :playful:

Honestly, this new science does sound wonderful on the surface, but I really think the entire implication
of such a thing has to be considered and researched thoroughly. One thing I read was that we don't know if this type of human
cells injection into an animal may actually affect an animal's neurology and could possibly cause a human's brain to be trapped
in an animal's body. Horrifying thought.

Another thing is that who's to say somewhere down the line there wouldn't be experiments to create actual human-animal
beings? Sounds fantastical, but if you can do it, someone will.
 
Olivia, the trouble with that line of thinking is that fear can make us fail to develop any new scientific ideas. What if the polio vaccine had fallen into the wrong hands and could be slightly modified to make people paralyzed? What if the smallpox vaccine gave us smallpox? (And yes, a very small number of people have actually died from reactions to those vaccines.)

That "What if?!" scenario can be used to halt every new development in scientific, technical, or social endeavors. "End school segregation? Next thing we know, they will all be marrying one another, and THEN what?" "If God had intended for people to fly, we would have wings." And so on.
 
Sunny said:
Olivia, the trouble with that line of thinking is that fear can make us fail to develop any new scientific ideas. What if the polio vaccine had fallen into the wrong hands and could be slightly modified to make people paralyzed? What if the smallpox vaccine gave us smallpox? (And yes, a very small number of people have actually died from reactions to those vaccines.)

That "What if?!" scenario can be used to halt every new development in scientific, technical, or social endeavors. "End school segregation? Next thing we know, they will all be marrying one another, and THEN what?" "If God had intended for people to fly, we would have wings." And so on.
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I see it way differently, which I already explained, not to say that anyone else can't see it differently, as well.

By the way, I'll take the opportunity to recommend a novel by Michael Faber titled "Under The Skin". Not exactly the same topic, but does force one to look at some things maybe the way that we normally don't.
 

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