Not sure if anyone else has posted this topic, but have fun with it anyway!!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... meras.html

Animal-Human Hybrids Spark Controversy
Maryann Mott
National Geographic News
January 25, 2005

Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal.

Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells.

In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies.

And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later this year to create mice with human brains.

Scientists feel that, the more humanlike the animal, the better research model it makes for testing drugs or possibly growing "spare parts," such as livers, to transplant into humans.

Watching how human cells mature and interact in a living creature may also lead to the discoveries of new medical treatments.

But creating human-animal chimeras—named after a monster in Greek mythology that had a lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail—has raised troubling questions: What new subhuman combination should be produced and for what purpose? At what point would it be considered human? And what rights, if any, should it have?

There are currently no U.S. federal laws that address these issues.

Ethical Guidelines

The National Academy of Sciences, which advises the U.S. government, has been studying the issue. In March it plans to present voluntary ethical guidelines for researchers.

A chimera is a mixture of two or more species in one body. Not all are considered troubling, though.

For example, faulty human heart valves are routinely replaced with ones taken from cows and pigs. The surgery—which makes the recipient a human-animal chimera—is widely accepted. And for years scientists have added human genes to bacteria and farm animals.

What's caused the uproar is the mixing of human stem cells with embryonic animals to create new species.

Biotechnology activist Jeremy Rifkin is opposed to crossing species boundaries, because he believes animals have the right to exist without being tampered with or crossed with another species.

He concedes that these studies would lead to some medical breakthroughs. Still, they should not be done.

"There are other ways to advance medicine and human health besides going out into the strange, brave new world of chimeric animals," Rifkin said, adding that sophisticated computer models can substitute for experimentation on live animals.

"One doesn't have to be religious or into animal rights to think this doesn't make sense," he continued. "It's the scientists who want to do this. They've now gone over the edge into the pathological domain."

David Magnus, director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University, believes the real worry is whether or not chimeras will be put to uses that are problematic, risky, or dangerous.

Human Born to Mice Parents?

For example, an experiment that would raise concerns, he said, is genetically engineering mice to produce human sperm and eggs, then doing in vitro fertilization to produce a child whose parents are a pair of mice.

"Most people would find that problematic," Magnus said, "but those uses are bizarre and not, to the best of my knowledge, anything that anybody is remotely contemplating. Most uses of chimeras are actually much more relevant to practical concerns."

Last year Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which bans chimeras. Specifically, it prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell into a human embryo and putting human cells into a nonhuman embryo.

Cynthia Cohen is a member of Canada's Stem Cell Oversight Committee, which oversees research protocols to ensure they are in accordance with the new guidelines.

She believes a ban should also be put into place in the U.S.

Creating chimeras, she said, by mixing human and animal gametes (sperms and eggs) or transferring reproductive cells, diminishes human dignity.

"It would deny that there is something distinctive and valuable about human beings that ought to be honored and protected," said Cohen, who is also the senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics in Washington, D.C.

But, she noted, the wording on such a ban needs to be developed carefully. It shouldn't outlaw ethical and legitimate experiments—such as transferring a limited number of adult human stem cells into animal embryos in order to learn how they proliferate and grow during the prenatal period.

Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University's Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology and Medicine in California, is against a ban in the United States.

"Anybody who puts their own moral guidance in the way of this biomedical science, where they want to impose their will—not just be part of an argument—if that leads to a ban or moratorium. … they are stopping research that would save human lives," he said.

Mice With Human Brains

Weissman has already created mice with brains that are about one percent human.

Later this year he may conduct another experiment where the mice have 100 percent human brains. This would be done, he said, by injecting human neurons into the brains of embryonic mice.

Before being born, the mice would be killed and dissected to see if the architecture of a human brain had formed. If it did, he'd look for traces of human cognitive behavior.

Weissman said he's not a mad scientist trying to create a human in an animal body. He hopes the experiment leads to a better understanding of how the brain works, which would be useful in treating diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease.

The test has not yet begun. Weissman is waiting to read the National Academy's report, due out in March.

William Cheshire, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic's Jacksonville, Florida, branch, feels that combining human and animal neurons is problematic.

"This is unexplored biologic territory," he said. "Whatever moral threshold of human neural development we might choose to set as the limit for such an experiment, there would be a considerable risk of exceeding that limit before it could be recognized."

Cheshire supports research that combines human and animal cells to study cellular function. As an undergraduate he participated in research that fused human and mouse cells.

But where he draws the ethical line is on research that would destroy a human embryo to obtain cells, or research that would create an organism that is partly human and partly animal.

"We must be cautious not to violate the integrity of humanity or of animal life over which we have a stewardship responsibility," said Cheshire, a member of Christian Medical and Dental Associations. "Research projects that create human-animal chimeras risk disturbing fragile ecosystems, endanger health, and affront species integrity."

i read a book by james patterson that deals with this, though it was on a much larger scale... i think it was called when the wind blows... good read, and even though it was fiction, it still got me thinking about where things like this could wind up

This is great - create an army of creatures just to experiment on. Sick, sick world.

I bet a cow-man would taste delicious.

--PunkDavid

you frighten me

Somewhere Stonecrest is weeping right now.

Did any of you see that episode of GI Joe were one of the Joes gets injecterbated with some sort of animal serum and turns into a killer whale? There were Cobra thugs on the island that were manimals as well. It was a modern day Island of Dr. Moreau!!

By the way, if scientists could splice me up some sort of small man/monkey servant (like the little freak in the Val Kilmer version of The Island of Dr. Moreau) that would be pretty sweet!

But on a serious note, I thought that article brought up some disturbing images: humans borne of mice! Sick.

Nice!!!

playing God is dangerous. it's been said since Paracelsus, who knew how to create homunculii. the tale of Frankenstein's creature... so many wierd things we're willing to spend a monstrous ammount of money, while people still starve or die of yellow fever or cholera. this is a crazy world and we're a bunch of lunatics, because we still believe it's the way things should be, that it's just normal. sometimes i wish i could wake up from this nightmare.

I am all for it.

If such experimentation leads to cures for cancer, Alzheimers, etc, then of course so be it.

Much of the uproar occurs in the non-academic community, where many of the concepts are distorted, poorly understood, or completely falsified.

We will NOT see armies of animal-humans or any other fantasy-based ideas. We WILL, however, gain a better understanding of stem-cell development, human development, and other biochemical and molecular cell advancements.

The world did not impode when the first animal was cloned, and it will not implode with this type of science either.

The sky is not falling here folks.

Good. It's cruel and uneccesary.

...according to those who usually know not of which they speak, and then make laws about it.

All money from chimera research should be diverted to space programs. You know, that other "unecessary" branch of scientific inquiry.

Recalling that thread, at the end of it I said that I could find value in outer space research.

However, I place medical research (including what is listed in the article above) far above research in outer space.

Here's a photo of one of these things. It's sick I tell you. Sick.

*wipes away tears* Priceless

And I find medical research, including stem cell and cloning to also be incredibly important. It all ties together anyway. I merely personally draw the line at various types of animal testing, for a lot of reasons. Because one objects doesn't mean they "know not of which they speak" and it doesn't mean someone isn't an "academic" or aware either. It's a personal objection, and to quote you, it doesn't mean the sky is falling if this stuff doesn't happen either. But then again, that's just me.

The world is in shock.



Oh, of course. Apparently any means, to you, will justify the ends of cancer, Alzheimers, etc. How silly of me to think that there just might be some things that should be off-limits.



Perhaps you would like to share these distortions or misunderstood ideas with those people in the RM community who are not in the academic community? I'm sure many people, myself included, would like to better understand this so that we can make an intelligent decision on the issue.



Well thank goodness. Everybody, do you hear that? Tsunami says we won't see armies of animal-humans or other fantasy-based ideas. It's good to know that this sort of research isn't going to lead to further blurring of the lines between non-human animals and humans and will only yield wonderful results so that people with cancer will one day survive and the world will be at peace.



Well, I'm sold. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the world has never imploded so I guess everything that is humanly possible is justified. Whew, this makes it much easier for me to determine my stance on issues.



Agreed. The sky is merely mourning at our arrogance.

I'm always torn on issues like this for a different reason. It's not that I'm ignoring the moral questions, but I'm worried by some of the other results not being discussed. Namely, World Population. The Earth is already straining to sustain its current population, and the population is growing exponentially mainly due to these advances in medicine. If we continue to find cures that will save millions of people from dying each year, the population growth numbers will keep increasing at a sharper and sharper rate until what? I can't help but think that we are tinkering with natural checks and balances on population which will just hasten our population explosion to the point of exhaustion. Yes, it is terrible to lose a loved one to disease. However, that loss has been dealt with for as long as man has been alive and if we want to keep living on this earth for years and years to come, we need to do something to address population concerns.

Now, don't go calling me a cold-hearted asshole that doesn't want to find a cure for your father's cancer or sister's AID/HIV. I'm really just voicing some concerns I always have on the population side and trying to see what others think about this as well. As I stated in my opening line, I'm always torn on issues like this.