Lost Cause
It's a wrap!
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2001
- Posts
- 30,949
Well, it's bound to happen, scientists can't stay the fuck away from the pandora's box of tricks.
This is what they publicly experimented with....
Scientists in China have, for the first time, used cloning techniques to create hybrid embryos that contain a mix of DNA from both humans and rabbits, according to a report in a scientific journal that has reignited the smoldering ethics debate over cloning research.
More than 100 of the hybrids, made by fusing human skin cells with rabbit eggs, were allowed to develop in laboratory dishes for several days before the scientists destroyed them to retrieve so-called embryonic stem cells from their interiors. Although scientists in Massachusetts had previously mixed human cells and cow eggs in a similar attempt to make hybrid embryos as a source of stem cells, those experiments were not successful.
Some wondered aloud what, exactly, such a creature would be if it were transferred to a womb to develop to term.
The vast majority of the DNA in the embryos is human, with a small percentage of genetic material -- called mitochondrial DNA -- contributed by the rabbit egg. No one knows if such an embryo could develop into a viable fetus, though some experiments with other species suggest it would not.
The team said it retrieved foreskin tissue from two 5-year-old boys and two men, and facial tissue from a 60-year-old woman, as a source of skin cells. They fused those cells with New Zealand rabbit eggs from which the vast majority of rabbit DNA had been removed. More than 400 of those new, fused entities grew into early embryos, and more than 100 survived to the blastocyst stage -- the point at which coveted stem cells begin to form.
Because human egg cells are difficult and costly to retrieve from women's ovaries -- and because human egg retrieval poses risks to the donors -- scientists have been wanting to know whether animal eggs may serve as well. A major question has been whether the remnants of mitochondrial DNA that typically remain in an animal egg would be compatible with the nuclear DNA contributed by the human cell.
This is the first creation of a human "chimeric" embryo -- a reference to the fabulous chimera of Greek mythology, which had a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail -- it is not the first time scientists have blended human cells into lab animals. Some mice, for example, have been endowed with human brain cells or portions of the human immune system for research.
The Chinese work, Melton said, is "extremely interesting, and I hope they pursue it."
"Short of putting one of these embryos into a woman's body for development to term, I don't think this work harms anyone alive."
Richard Doerflinger, of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he felt certain that the human-rabbit embryos were human enough to deserve protections.
"I think because all the nuclear DNA is human," Doerflinger said, "we'd consider this an organism of the human species."
*Does this stuff give you the heebiegeebies or is it just me?
*I edited this story of useless reporter inputs, and stuck with the basic data. The full story is here;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55911-2003Aug13?language=printer
This is what they publicly experimented with....
Scientists in China have, for the first time, used cloning techniques to create hybrid embryos that contain a mix of DNA from both humans and rabbits, according to a report in a scientific journal that has reignited the smoldering ethics debate over cloning research.
More than 100 of the hybrids, made by fusing human skin cells with rabbit eggs, were allowed to develop in laboratory dishes for several days before the scientists destroyed them to retrieve so-called embryonic stem cells from their interiors. Although scientists in Massachusetts had previously mixed human cells and cow eggs in a similar attempt to make hybrid embryos as a source of stem cells, those experiments were not successful.
Some wondered aloud what, exactly, such a creature would be if it were transferred to a womb to develop to term.
The vast majority of the DNA in the embryos is human, with a small percentage of genetic material -- called mitochondrial DNA -- contributed by the rabbit egg. No one knows if such an embryo could develop into a viable fetus, though some experiments with other species suggest it would not.
The team said it retrieved foreskin tissue from two 5-year-old boys and two men, and facial tissue from a 60-year-old woman, as a source of skin cells. They fused those cells with New Zealand rabbit eggs from which the vast majority of rabbit DNA had been removed. More than 400 of those new, fused entities grew into early embryos, and more than 100 survived to the blastocyst stage -- the point at which coveted stem cells begin to form.
Because human egg cells are difficult and costly to retrieve from women's ovaries -- and because human egg retrieval poses risks to the donors -- scientists have been wanting to know whether animal eggs may serve as well. A major question has been whether the remnants of mitochondrial DNA that typically remain in an animal egg would be compatible with the nuclear DNA contributed by the human cell.
This is the first creation of a human "chimeric" embryo -- a reference to the fabulous chimera of Greek mythology, which had a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail -- it is not the first time scientists have blended human cells into lab animals. Some mice, for example, have been endowed with human brain cells or portions of the human immune system for research.
The Chinese work, Melton said, is "extremely interesting, and I hope they pursue it."
"Short of putting one of these embryos into a woman's body for development to term, I don't think this work harms anyone alive."
Richard Doerflinger, of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he felt certain that the human-rabbit embryos were human enough to deserve protections.
"I think because all the nuclear DNA is human," Doerflinger said, "we'd consider this an organism of the human species."
*Does this stuff give you the heebiegeebies or is it just me?
*I edited this story of useless reporter inputs, and stuck with the basic data. The full story is here;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A55911-2003Aug13?language=printer
