Apr 15, 2021 11:00am Scientists from China and the U.S. have injected human stem cells into primate embryos, creating new models that could offer insights into developmental biology and aid drug research. (Weizhi Ji, Kunming University of Science and Technology)
Scientists use different models to study human disease when it would be too early or ethically problematic to run experiments in humans. Those models aim to mimic human biology as closely as possible to allow more accurate results.
Furthering that goal, investigators from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and China’s Kunming University of Science and Technology injected human stem cells into monkey embryos, resulting in chimeric embryos that survived in lab dishes for up to 20 days.
Tomorrow’s world
Walter Isaacson and Henry Greely probe the power and peril of CRISPR gene-editing MIT Press; 400 pages; $27.95 and £22.50
The Code Breaker. By Walter Isaacson.
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HAT THE transistor once was to electronics, so
CRISPR gene-editing is to biotechnology today. It changes the field from something interesting but clunky, and of restricted application, into a game of infinite possibility that almost anyone can play. Transistors led to computer chips and the youthful entrepreneurs of the Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley. Similarly,
CRISPR editing has let a new generation of would-be billionaires explore ideas that range from systematising the search for the proteins targeted by drugs, to breeding pigs that might act as organ donors for transplants.
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The disturbing true history of animal-human hybrid experiments in the 90s and early 21st century, and the controversial scientist at the center of it.
Published: December 20, 2020
In November of 1998, Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. (ACT) succeeded in manufacturing a human-cow hybrid for the purpose of proving that it was possible to derive stem cells from an animal-human hybrid, from which to grow various tissues and organs that could be human enough to be given to humans in need of replacement organs and tissues. Stem cells, which were and perhaps are still considered by many to be available only in embryos, are wonderful cells that can develop into any organ or tissue. The hybrid, which was aborted twelve days after conception, had been the result of the implantation of human DNA into a cow s egg whose own DNA had been removed. A chemical had been added to spur meiosis. The scientists seemed to be using animal eggs instead of human eggs because animal egg