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NPR: Should Human Stem Cells Be Used To Make Partly Human Chimeras?

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I

ivysaur12

Banned
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-...m-cells-be-used-to-make-partly-human-chimeras

An intense debate has flared over whether the federal government should fund research that creates partly human creatures using human stem cells.

The National Institutes of Health declared a moratorium in late September on funding this kind of research. NIH officials said they needed to assess the science and to evaluate the ethical and moral questions it raises. As part of that assessment, the NIH is holding a daylong workshop Friday.

Meanwhile, some prominent scientists worry that the NIH moratorium is hindering a highly promising field of research at a crucial moment. Such concerns prompted several researchers this week, writing in the journal Science, to call on the NIH to lift the moratorium.

"The shadow of negativity cast around this research is going to have a major negative impact on any progress going forward," says Sean Wu, a cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University, who helped write the article.

The moratorium was prompted by an increasing number of requests to fund these experiments, says Carrie Wolinetz, the NIH's associate director for science policy. In the experiments, scientists propose to insert human stem cells into very early embryos from other animals, creating dual-species chimeras.

"The science is knocking at our door," Wolinetz told Shots in advance of the workshop. She says NIH wants to "make sure that we are fully prepared from a policy and guidance point of view" before making decisions about such grants.

Scientists have been creating partly human chimeras for years. Researchers use rats with human tumors to study cancer, for example, and mice with human immune systems to do AIDS research.

What's new is putting human stem cells into the embryos of other animals, very early in embryonic development.

"The special issue here with stem cells is that those types of human cells are so powerful and so elastic that there's great worry about the degree to which the animals could become humanized," says Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University.

The goal of the research is to create chimeras that lead to new treatments for human diseases. For example, the technique might enable scientists to create better animal models for studying diseases in the laboratory.

Researchers also hope to grow human organs in animals that would be closely matched to patients needing transplants.

"This could have a big impact in the way medicine is practiced," says Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor of gene expression at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
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Françoise Baylis, a bioethicist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, says the engineering of creatures that are partly human and partly nonhuman animal is objectionable because the existence of such beings "would introduce inexorable moral confusion in our existing relationships with nonhuman animals, and in our future relationships with part-human hybrids and chimeras."

Another concern is that the human cells could end up in the brains of the animals. That raises the prospect that "this will somehow give the animal a human consciousness, human mental capabilities," says Hank Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford University.

In addition, some scientists and bioethicists fear the stem cells could create human eggs and sperm in the animals.

"If you had a male mouse that had human sperm in it, that's going to be a concern to some people, especially if it's anywhere near a female mouse that has human eggs in it," Greely says. "To say the least, it's disconcerting to think about two mice making a human embryo."

Still, Greely, Hyun and the scientists conducting the research all agree that the most alarming concerns are highly unlikely. And, they say, safeguards could be put in place to allow the research to go forward.
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Chimera me if old
 
T

TheGreatLugia

Banned
eEc5eHX.jpg
 
C

collige

Banned
Françoise Baylis, a bioethicist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, says the engineering of creatures that are partly human and partly nonhuman animal is objectionable because the existence of such beings "would introduce inexorable moral confusion in our existing relationships with nonhuman animals, and in our future relationships with part-human hybrids and chimeras."
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He says that like it's a bad thing.
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
National Institutes of Health

I don't know guys, should we trust them?
 
O

old manatee

Banned
I already feel lame as fuck being born a straight white male. If people start walking around with fire breathing goat heads and snake tails and shit I'm just going to put a bag on my head and work the night shift somewhere.
 
N

Nivash

Member
Second year of med school we had a biomedical researcher holding a lecture. She ended it with this: "one time we accidentally impregnated a frog egg with human sperm and created a human/frog hybrid that lived for a few cell divisions, you probably shouldn't tell anyone".

It's been done.

I don't have any major objections to the principle but I agree that each implementation need to be done carefully. It's definitely frankenstein territory but the possible benefits are large enough that we shouldn't just toss it in the trash out of moral reactionism.
 
M

maxcriden

Member
Nivash said:
Second year of med school we had a biomedical researcher holding a lecture. She ended it with this: "one time we accidentally impregnated a frog egg with human sperm and created a human/frog hybrid that lived for a few cell divisions, you probably shouldn't tell anyone".

It's been done.

I don't have any major objections to the principle but I agree that each implementation need to be done carefully. It's definitely frankenstein territory but the possible benefits are large enough that we shouldn't just toss it in the trash out of moral reactionism.
Click to expand...

See. That's terrifying to me, Nivash. Not even from a moral perspective, because I haven't quite parsed out how I feel about it from an ethical point of view, but simply just the scientific implications seem striking. I imagine this was several years ago, from how you're talking about it.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Tenebrous said:
I was wondering the same thing... What the fuck is it meant to be?
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It's a dog in a wig made to look like a character from the manga and subsequently anime Full Metal Alchemist, who is
a child permanently fused with a dog and reduced to a monster by her father who wanted a scientific break-through
.
 
O

Orbis Tabula

Member
Nivash said:
Second year of med school we had a biomedical researcher holding a lecture. She ended it with this: "one time we accidentally impregnated a frog egg with human sperm and created a human/frog hybrid that lived for a few cell divisions, you probably shouldn't tell anyone".

It's been done.

I don't have any major objections to the principle but I agree that each implementation need to be done carefully. It's definitely frankenstein territory but the possible benefits are large enough that we shouldn't just toss it in the trash out of moral reactionism.
Click to expand...

That's a super cool story.
 
P

perfectchaos007

Member
Crab said:
It's a dog in a wig made to look like a character from the manga and subsequently anime Full Metal Alchemist, who is
a child permanently fused with a dog and reduced to a monster by her father who wanted a scientific break-through
.
Click to expand...

ah okay. Thanks for the context
 
B

Brakke

Banned
Is that dog some kind of anime meme?

I always figured this would be a thing. Lab-grow a human pancreas or any kind of endocrine gland, implant it in a pig or whatever as a life support system, harvest hormones to use to treat humans.

I dunno if there's much moral quandary here. I think it's fair to be wary of bioengineering but more because of the potential to create catastrophic or unexpected outcomes.
 
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