Downright creepifying - Chimeras

POSTED BY: Connorflynn
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 18:35
VIEWED: 7205
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CONNORFLYNN

Thursday, January 27, 2005 6:53 PM

Quote:
Maryann Mott
National Geographic News

January 25, 2005
Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal.

Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells.

In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies.

And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later this year to create mice with human brains.

Scientists feel that, the more humanlike the animal, the better research model it makes for testing drugs or possibly growing "spare parts," such as livers, to transplant into humans.

Watching how human cells mature and interact in a living creature may also lead to the discoveries of new medical treatments.

But creating human-animal chimeras—named after a monster in Greek mythology that had a lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail—has raised troubling questions: What new subhuman combination should be produced and for what purpose? At what point would it be considered human? And what rights, if any, should it have?

There are currently no U.S. federal laws that address these issues.

Ethical Guidelines

The National Academy of Sciences, which advises the U.S. government, has been studying the issue. In March it plans to present voluntary ethical guidelines for researchers.

A chimera is a mixture of two or more species in one body. Not all are considered troubling, though.

For example, faulty human heart valves are routinely replaced with ones taken from cows and pigs. The surgery—which makes the recipient a human-animal chimera—is widely accepted. And for years scientists have added human genes to bacteria and farm animals.

What's caused the uproar is the mixing of human stem cells with embryonic animals to create new species.

Biotechnology activist Jeremy Rifkin is opposed to crossing species boundaries, because he believes animals have the right to exist without being tampered with or crossed with another species.

He concedes that these studies would lead to some medical breakthroughs. Still, they should not be done.

"There are other ways to advance medicine and human health besides going out into the strange, brave new world of chimeric animals," Rifkin said, adding that sophisticated computer models can substitute for experimentation on live animals.

"One doesn't have to be religious or into animal rights to think this doesn't make sense," he continued. "It's the scientists who want to do this. They've now gone over the edge into the pathological domain."

David Magnus, director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University, believes the real worry is whether or not chimeras will be put to uses that are problematic, risky, or dangerous.

Human Born to Mice Parents?

For example, an experiment that would raise concerns, he said, is genetically engineering mice to produce human sperm and eggs, then doing in vitro fertilization to produce a child whose parents are a pair of mice.

"Most people would find that problematic," Magnus said, "but those uses are bizarre and not, to the best of my knowledge, anything that anybody is remotely contemplating. Most uses of chimeras are actually much more relevant to practical concerns."

Last year Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which bans chimeras. Specifically, it prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell into a human embryo and putting human cells into a nonhuman embryo.

Cynthia Cohen is a member of Canada's Stem Cell Oversight Committee, which oversees research protocols to ensure they are in accordance with the new guidelines.

She believes a ban should also be put into place in the U.S.

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MONTANAGIRL

Friday, January 28, 2005 2:41 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Connorflynn:
The mice with 1% human brains. I can see it now:

"What we gonna do tonight Brain? " - unknown Mouse with 1% human brain (We'll call him Pinky)

"What we do every night Pinky, Try and take over the DNC" - unknown Mouse with 10% human brain (We'll call him Brain)

"Gnarf" - Unknown Mouse with 0% Human brain (We'll call him Terry)

Pardon me while I laugh hysterically. Then add, "Zort!" "Troz!"

And with regards to the actual article, I have to agree with downright creepifyin'.

Packer fans welcome.
All others tolerated.

CONNORFLYNN

Monday, January 31, 2005 7:34 PM

You know..I thought about this a little bit more and started wondering. If this is so gorram public..what the hell is going on behind closed doors?!?!

With humans being fallible and such..the thought that we are playing god in such a way publicly, makes me afraid of what they are doing behind closed doors. Then I think about the current food chain hehe. Our current response to handling something that might upset our position on the food chain is to find it and kill it (first) then maybe dissect it and see how it ticks. What happens if someone behind closed doors and in complete secrecy makes something that can't be so easily dealt with?

Have they already done so?

SGTGUMP

Monday, January 31, 2005 8:26 PM

Quote:
You know..I thought about this a little bit more and started wondering. If this is so gorram public..what the hell is going on behind closed doors?!?!

That's true, Just like the B-2 Bomber that we didn't see until about 15 years of research and testing. Cells are a lot smaller than a plane, they could be making human-mouse Chimeras in a basement in downtown Seattle, for all we know. I personally don't beleive that it is something that is going to be stopped. But maybe our lives are going to be like old Sci-Fi movies, where we are all running from giant ants and trying to kill the mad scientists. I'm glad I own a shotgun.

BARNSTORMER

Monday, January 31, 2005 8:41 PM

I know what you mean Conner. We are just not smart enough to mess with things like this.

Whenever I read some article or other like this, I can't help thinking of Kurt Vonneguts book "Ice 9" in which a scientist develops a form of water that freezes at room temperature (just to see if it could be done I guess). The thing is that once this form of ice comes in contact with normal water, it teaches the normal water to freeze at room temperature as well.

Well, you probably guessed already the the fool scientist accidently unleashes a small sample in the real world and........Oops, all water on earth freezes.

Their are things in this world I believe should just not be f*cked with. We humans just don't know enough to not be dangerous..

Am I a Lion?... No, I think I'ma tellin' the truth.

BarnStormer

CYBERSNARK

Monday, January 31, 2005 10:16 PM

Anybody remember Dark Angel? Project Manticore is somehow not looking so far-fetched.

Quote:
Originally posted by sgtgump:
they could be making human-mouse Chimeras in a basement in downtown Seattle, for all we know.

Hmm. Maybe certain US political leaders are animaniac-style robot bodies with mice in control. . .

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

NEEDLESEYE

Monday, January 31, 2005 10:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Connorflynn:
Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created.

Brings new meaning to Echo and The Bunnymen.

May I just say that this whole line of study is too disturbing for me.

Keeper of Jayne's goggles. 8)

XENOCIDE

Monday, January 31, 2005 10:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BarnStormer:
Whenever I read some article or other like this, I can't help thinking of Kurt Vonneguts book "Ice 9" in which a scientist develops a form of water that freezes at room temperature (just to see if it could be done I guess).

Just for clarity...I think the vonnegut book was actually entitled Cat's Cradle. I think Ice 9 was just one of the subjects, but maybe my brain is missing.

RE: Dark Angel, yeah... but if you recall it was the government, not the scientific community in general, that was doing the bad.

Just my 2cents.

-Eli

If voting mattered, they'd make it illegal.

DANFAN

Tuesday, February 1, 2005 1:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Connorflynn:
If this is so gorram public..what the hell is going on behind closed doors?!?!

The folks doing stuff behind doors would most likely be the government trying to find military uses... if they have the interest in trying it.

If I were to put my guessing hat on...I'd guess we would be talking about finding more efficient muscles, eyes, or hearing in the animal kingdom to equip soldiers with. Or possibly engineering small field mice or birds with sufficiently human brains to spy in foreign territory and report back on what they see/hear.

The idea of such near-human animals is creepy enough all by itself. What makes it uber-creepy for me is how we will likely treat such creatures. The prevailing cultural attitude seems to be that there is a quantum step between humans and animals... that we are completely unique in our abilities. Several scientific studies indicate that idea doesn't seem to hold much water. There appears to be a WHOLE lot of human-like intelligence and emotion in a chimpanzee. I see more goodness in my dogs than in some people. There is a lot of evidence (presented by some factions within the scientific community) that what we regard as "human" traits exist to varying degrees in many (if not all) of the higher mammals. Sort of a "humanity spectrum."

And still, as a culture, we are all too wiling to treat EVERYTHING non-human as if it lived on the other side of some immeasurably high wall... no better than inanimate objects.

This trait even exists in the scientific community. There is still a raging debate in scientific circles whether any creature on this planet besides humans can feel emotion. For those who hold that animals don't have emotions, they say that what appears to be emotion in the higher mammals is really "instinctive behavioral programming" that confers some survival advantage. The animals are really just complex organic automatons. To most of us, it seems incomprehensible that such a claim could be made with a straight face. I fear that we would be all too likely to put visibly animal chimeras on the other side of that wall as easily as we do all natural animals.

What if some of the creatures we put on the other side of that "not-human" wall have some significant measure of humanity that we put into them? Something like a mouse with a human-architecture brain as smart and self aware as a 3 year-old human child? It could be a tragedy of monumental proportions. In the articles that this thread prompted me to read, most of the naysayers dwell on "diluting the integrity and dignity of the species." I didn't see anyone speak on the humanity of such modified creaturs... it's like no one has the nerve to consider the possiblity. Until we have a consensus on whether humanity is an all or nothing proposition.. and how much "human" it takes to confer "humanity"... we should be VERY cautious messing with this stuff.

Sorry. End rant...

MONTANAGIRL

Tuesday, February 1, 2005 2:56 AM

Quote:
What if some of the creatures we put on the other side of that "not-human" wall have some significant measure of humanity that we put into them?

I was just reminded of "The Island of Dr. Moreaux" by H.G. Wells and the similar questions he raised.

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All others tolerated.

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