Lab-Developed Hybrid of Human and Pig: The Reality Unveiled

In a groundbreaking biomedical advance, an international team of researchers, led by the Salk Institute, have successfully created the first successful human-animal chimeras. These chimeras, a blend of pig embryos and human cells, were developed in an attempt to address the critical shortage of donor organs.

Professor Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, at the helm of this four-year project, and his team utilised the genome editing tool CRISPR to delete genes in mouse blastocysts. They then inserted rat stem cells capable of producing certain organs into the modified mouse blastocysts. Remarkably, 186 later-stage chimeric embryos survived, with an estimated one in 100,000 human cells.

The team's efforts were not without challenges. Differences in gestation times and evolutionary ancestors made it difficult to insert stem cells from rats into pig blastocysts. However, they discovered that the timing had to be just right to introduce human cells into pig embryos without killing them.

Pigs, despite their differences, share notable similarities with humans, particularly in organ structure. This similarity was demonstrated when the resulting mice managed to live into adulthood and grew chimeric gall bladders made of mouse and rat cells. Moreover, mouse pancreases grown inside rats have successfully treated diabetes when transplanted into diseased mice.

The creation of human-animal chimeras has been ineligible for public funding in the United States. However, the team's findings, reported in the journal Cell, have been funded by private donors, including Jeffrey Epstein.

As the world grapples with the organ donor crisis, every ten minutes, a person is added to the national waiting list for organ transplants. Every day, 22 people on that list die without the organ they need. The hope is that these human-animal chimeras could provide a solution, paving the way for the growth of human organs within other animals.

The next step for the Salk-led team is to determine if it's possible to increase the number of human cells the embryos can tolerate. This could potentially reduce the pig tissue content in organs grown from such embryos, making them less likely to be rejected by humans.

This research marks a significant step forward in the field of biomedical science, offering a glimmer of hope for those in need of life-saving organ transplants. However, it also raises ethical questions that will need to be addressed as this field continues to evolve.