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Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
Last updated at 10:22am on 25.03.07Scientists 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 £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus.
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Chimera: sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells
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."
lAnimal Farm is on Channel 4 at 9pm tomorrow
Reader views (8)
I just want to know how far the scientists are willing to go with this and whether the sheep will pay 15% taxes.
- Tanner Jones, New York, USA
Scientists now say that the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), which is believed to have been transmitted to humans to become HIV-1—the virus that causes AIDS, didn't start its life in chimps.
Instead, it was a product of separate viruses jumping from different monkey species into chimps, where they recombined to form a hybrid virus.
- Nicholas, USA
Will the "watchdog" be 100% canine, genetically, or a chimera, as well? If mankind cannot even define "God", then how will it be determined if a person is "playing God"?
Does anyone feel the shaking foundations of a consensus reality, here?
- Richard Storey, Savannah, GA
I find the comment made by Dr. Dixon very interesting. Are you suggesting that the HIV virus was a mutant of animal origin? What animal, developed by whom and in what country?
- Namakula Tause, USA, Washington
Well, it seems those farmers out in the midwest might have known something before anyone else. They've been trying to blend humans and sheep for a long time now.
- Orfel Bleep, USA
Four legs gooooood two legs baaaaaad.
- Scott, Colorado, USA
Goerge Bush has already turned about 35% of the US into sheep. We don't need academics to help him!
- Vince Coyle, Carson City, Nevada USA
If their brains are half-human, doesn't that make them sentient?
- Natasha, Georgia
