UC Davis researchers are injecting human stem cells into pigs. The goal is to create farm animals with human organs. The question of the hour is what if they create a pig, (or sheep), with human consciousness?
According to Boise State Public Radio: "The first step involves using new gene-editing techniques to remove the gene that pig embryos need to make a pancreas.
Working
under an elaborate microscope, Ross makes a small hole in the embryo's
outer membrane with a laser. Next, he injects a molecule synthesized in
the laboratory to home in on and delete the pancreas gene inside. (In
separate experiments, he has done this to sheep embryos, too.)
After the embryos have had their DNA edited this way, Ross creates another hole in the membrane so he can inject human induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS for short, into the pig embryos.
Like
human embryonic stem cells, iPS cells can turn into any kind of cell or
tissue in the body. The researchers' hope is that the human stem cells
will take advantage of the void in the embryo to start forming a human
pancreas.
Because iPS cells can be made from any adult's skin
cells, any organs they form would match the patient who needs the
transplant, vastly reducing the risk that the body would reject the new
organ."
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