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   Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human

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Genius
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Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
« on: Mar 26^th, 2007, 1:36pm »

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Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
By CLAUDIA JOSEPH - More by this author ť

Last updated at 21:26pm on 24th March 2007

Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.

The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.

Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and Ł5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus.

He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.

The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor's bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep's foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant.

"We would take a couple of ounces of bone marrow cells from the patient,' said Prof Zanjani, whose work is highlighted in a Channel 4 programme tomorrow.

"We would isolate the stem cells from them, inject them into the peritoneum of these animals and then these cells would get distributed throughout the metabolic system into the circulatory system of all the organs in the body. The two ounces of stem cell or bone marrow cell we get would provide enough stem cells to do about ten foetuses. So you don't just have one organ for transplant purposes, you have many available in case the first one fails."

At present 7,168 patients are waiting for an organ transplant in Britain alone, and two thirds of them are expected to die before an organ becomes available.

Scientists at King's College, London, and the North East Stem Cell Institute in Newcastle have now applied to the HFEA, the Government's fertility watchdog, for permission to start work on the chimeras.

But the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race.

Dr Patrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, warned: "Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV."

Animal rights activists fear that if the cells get mixed together, they could end up with cellular fusion, creating a hybrid which would have the features and characteristics of both man and sheep. But Prof Zanjani said: "Transplanting the cells into foetal sheep at this early stage does not result in fusion at all."

View picture here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article _id=444436&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=&ct=5

I just hope something like AIDS would not introduced in the human race. And isn't it cruelty against/ expoitating animals to change their genetic makeup? This is very unlike the case of say mating a lion and tiger together.

« Last Edit: Mar 26^th, 2007, 1:37pm by Genius »

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Isle_be_back
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Re: Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
« Reply #1 on: Mar 26^th, 2007, 6:09pm »

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Wow. Who'd of thunk all this time them rednecks were just carryin' out scientific experiments? I reckon I should apologize to my cousin Zeke.

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Rhune
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Re: Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
« Reply #2 on: Mar 26^th, 2007, 7:10pm »

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Yeah this is yucky...they need to focus more on how to inject human stem cells into human organs and repair existing organs that way rather than replacement with animal parts. There's been amazing leaps and bounds in that field of study that will hopefully make any research they do here with these man-sheeps pointless. *baaaaaah*

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Pocket
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Re: Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
« Reply #3 on: Mar 26^th, 2007, 9:19pm »

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This kind of experimentation is just creepy.

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Jeff
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Re: Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
« Reply #4 on: Mar 27^th, 2007, 12:44pm »

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Yeah, I felt a bit of a shiver go down my spine when I read this, but if I need an organ one day and I have a choice between an animal's organ or dying, I'd choose the animal's organ.

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Bumper
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Re: Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
« Reply #5 on: Mar 27^th, 2007, 3:57pm »

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As I said in another thread around here . . . . . . .

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It looks like we have reached a point where modern science has found the key to Pandora's Box.

. . . . . . the possibilities and more so, the ramifications of the opening of that box . . .

. . . scare the crap out of me.

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Dixie
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Re: Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
« Reply #6 on: Mar 27^th, 2007, 5:40pm »

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ExIsle....... :rofl:

!!!

On a more serious note-I'm with Bumper, this stuff scares the crap out of me!

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Joab
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Re: Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
« Reply #7 on: Mar 28^th, 2007, 7:25am »

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This is creepy, but if it benefits human mankind.. then i guess we just have to deal with it.

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Rhune
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Re: Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
« Reply #8 on: Mar 28^th, 2007, 11:32am »

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I don't think we have to deal with it at all. One arm of science is working on replacement & repairs for human organs using human stem cells and making huge progress. Another 10 years and who knows where this will lead. A different arm is experimenting with human and animal combinations. I think the one will make the other irrelevant given enough time and funding. I think the answer is not in experimentation with mixing the two dna's, and I wish both sides would focus their funding and knowledge together on the human only instead of wasting time on the sheep-man organs.

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