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Chimeric Human-Monkey Embryos Kept Alive for a Record 19 Days
A chimeric human-monkey blastocyst.
Building on previous experiments, an international team of scientists has created chimeric human-monkey embryos, which were kept alive for nearly three weeks. The breakthrough could lead to new ways of testing drugs and generating organs for transplant, but this line of research is raising some ethical concerns.
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New research in Cell details the experiment, in which human stem cells were injected into primate embryos belonging to macaque monkeys. Most of these chimeric embryos were dead by the 10th day, but several developed for 19 days. Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, the lead author of the new study and a biologist at the Salk Institute, had previously kept human-monkey chimeric embryos alive for 14 days.
Credit: Weizhi Ji, Kunming University of Science and Technology
Investigators in China and the United States have injected human stem cells into primate embryos and were able to grow chimeric embryos for a significant period of time up to 20 days. The research, despite its ethical concerns, has the potential to provide new insights into developmental biology and evolution. It also has implications for developing new models of human biology and disease. The work appears April 15 in the journal
Cell. As we are unable to conduct certain types of experiments in humans, it is essential that we have better models to more accurately study and understand human biology and disease, says senior author Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. An important goal of experimental biology is the development of model systems that allow for the study of human diseases under in vivo conditions.
Credit: Salk Institute
LA JOLLA (April 15, 2021) The ability to grow the cells of one species within an organism of a different species offers scientists a powerful tool for research and medicine. It s an approach that could advance our understanding of early human development, disease onset and progression and aging; provide innovative platforms for drug evaluation; and address the critical need for transplantable organs. Yet developing such capabilities has been a formidable challenge.
Researchers led by Salk Professor Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte have now come one step closer toward this goal by demonstrating a new integration of human cells into animal tissue. Published in the journal
International team creates first chimeric human-monkey embryos Image of one of the chimeric human-monkey embryos.
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
A team of scientists from the U.S., China, and Spain reported Thursday they have created the first embryos that were part human and part monkey and kept them alive for up to 20 days in laboratory dishes.
The ethically controversial creation of chimeras containing cells from multiple species is part of a drive to make experimental models to help scientists better understand early development, devise new treatments for human disease, and possibly find methods to grow organs for transplant inside other animals, such as pigs or sheep. Such chimeras can be used in experiments that can’t be done with human embryos, for example, but combining human cells with those of primates ushers in new and urgent ethical concerns.