Slashdot Mirror
Pigs with Human Genes
LGRiske writes "In a step toward creating herds of pigs that could provide organs for transplanting into humans, Italian researchers manipulated swine sperm to make an animal strain that carries human genes in the heart, liver and kidneys."
fuck you
To genetically modify humans so we have pig organs?
Didn't Seinfeld post this already?
everything is falling into place...
AFAIK rejection rates from human-human transplants are quite high, and the search for compatible donors quite hard.
What did they do to surpass these two ? did they made them 100% compatible with everyone ? are they only compatible with the original human dna-donor for the pigs?
Should we start saving now to have a pig with our replacement liver (for beer) and heart (fried chicken & ribs) ?
mmmmmmmm, long pig.......
tasty!
So if they've got human DNA do they taste like chicken now... or do they still taste like pork?
Now Hillary Rosen can finally rest at ease, knowing she can replace her heart with a genetically compatible version, should she ever have problems with her current fat-swaddled organ.
I didn't like liver when I was a kid, and making the pig wear jeans isn't going to change my mind.
OH! Oh! Genes...never mind
One step closer to animal farm...
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Would the organ recipients be required to take up careers in law enforcement?
This is no medicine issue, these are the voters that will ensure Silvio Berlusconi another term as president.
be sued for patent infringement?
This can't be Kosher.. How about Dolly spare parts?
R4NT.com - A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
If a living being has a human heart, a human liver, and human kidneys ... is it closer to pig or human ? i mean, when do we stop ? wouldnt it be "easier" to just have a replacement human with say, no brain (so its not "really" a clone) living assisted by machines waiting for its parts to be harvested ?
I am having a kind of matrixy vison rite now, only its humans that own the storage facility.
Scary
but if you were living off an organ from a pig, how could you honestly ever eat bacon, pork, ribs, etc. again? And honeslty, is life really worth living without bacon and ribs?
(a) a Human DNA in Pigs project
(b) Sex with a mare
(c) Sex with a sow
Despite my name, I am not a fan of genetically modified pigs. We are tampering with nature in ways where we do not know the long term consequences. There are several reasons I shall list of why using pigs as 'organ farms' is not a good idea.
1) Nobody knows what might happen if these pigs somehow were released into the wild. A new species of 'super-pig' could potentionally cause wisespread damage if they escaped captivity.
2) Pigs are dirty, they typically roll in their own feces. This is not an appropriate animal to use for 'human' organs.
3) Using Pigs in such a fasion is inhumane. Nobody knows the pain these pigs could live with because we have set off certain gene sequences we should not have.
4) Pigs are not kosher, and Jewish or Moslems would not be able to benefit from these advances. That's alienting 1/5 of the planet right there from being able to benefit from this.
5) We are tampering with God's work. Pigs were created perfect the way they are, as are we. Toying with genes is tampering with God's perfect work and SHOULD not be done under any sane principals.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
A guy with a heart problem caused by cholestrol getting a heart that came from a fat pig!
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Does this mean that a doctor can extract stem cells from me, clone a genetically designed pig with a suitable spare part for my body and then make a transplant without any complications and added toxins to prevent my body from rejecting the organ. In that case it sounds great
How do they address the issue that most cloned animals turn out sick, I don't want a sick organ in replacement for my allready sick organ!
i think it was called 'Planet of the Pigs'...or something close to that.
Wait ... there is NO WAY all that glorious foods come from the same animal ... who do you take me for ?
One organ transplant and a plate of pork chops to go please!
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
I'm really not surprised by this. pig genes are very similar to other genes.
I am a Karma Library.
Sounds like a movie where a country bumpkin dressed up a sweet little swine in a bikini and OO-la-la
Science is the Real TRUTH!
If I remember properly, at least. I've been reading about it in the agricultural papers for several years, about how pigs would make the perfect organ carriers, etc. How interesting that they finally carried through with something. Hmph. Well, at least a pig's got personality, and personality goes a long way...or was that a dog?
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
This opens a whole can of worm on ethical issues. You can look at it that pigs will die just to help people out and that the pigs will have no choice to die and to just be raised for organs. For all you animal rights wackos out there, think of it this way: If your friend, brother, sister, father, etc... is going to die, and they say the only way for them to live is to raise a pig with a new organ for transplant, I'm sure you'll want that important person to live. Pigs aren't very unique, granted some are pets and they can be one of a kind, but your brother, sister, mom, so on is a very special one of a kind person that you could never replace with just any other human. So, think using your heart, not using ethics when thinking about something this.
Why genetically alter these helpless swine? Poor people are a perfectly good source of human organs, and the rejection rates are much lower. Lets try and save the pigs to make the bacon that necessitates the heart transplant that makes me strangle that bum down on 2nd Avenue. It's called the Circle of Life, folks.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Well, we use to get insulin straight from pigs so why not a whole pancreas?
Now if they harvest organs from these pigs with human DNA, does that mean we can't eat the leftovers without being cannibals?
Losing faith in humanity one person at a time.
... when do pigs fly ...
... Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
no no no... they gave up their claim to any form or semblance of humanity at the time they graduate from piggy school.
although I don't agree on the God's work point, there are 4 perfectly valid points in this post. It is surely not a troll.
I can't believe this story was reported here, let alone even on MSN.
Essentially, what these guys did was find a way to add a gene into a pig by messing with the sperm. This technique can't be used for removing genes, and can't replace genes. They can only add genes.
So they added DAF, because they say it helps fight rejection. Great. That is still a pig heart/liver/kidneys that you would be getting. There are lots of reasons that you can't transplant organs, including but not limited to:
1) Marker proteins. Your body won't even take organs from other people, let alone pigs. You'd have to replace pig markers with your own, which they cannot do.
2) Other surface proteins. They think they can ADD genes to do stuff to combat the sugars that pigs have on the surfaces of their cells. No removal, just throwing some gene for creating a suppressing chemical into the mix.
3) Cell morphology/DNA. Pig DNA is not human DNA. Pig cells are not human cells. Pig cells expressing "human genes" are closer, but when these cells replicate, when you get a virus, when something goes wrong.. what's gonna fix it? How do we know what will happen? Your body isn't built to have weird cells throw into it - that's why it destroys them. They have a long way to go before they even understand just membrane/cell surface reactions, and yet they wanna throw them into people.
To quote: "Lavitrano said that five to seven other pig genes will need to be silenced or replaced by human genes before useful organs could be harvested from the animals."
So tell me, how is this really news? The headline should have read "Scientists develop new but limited method for gene implantation." It's been done.
My only question is when the aliens start using people to grow alien parts in. Or wait, thats why they steal all those cows.
I want a nose transplant so i can have a snout and scoff down my slop bucket quicker.
Quite an interesting article, despite the usual newscientist hyperbole: "The technique is very easy - you could do it on the farm." Umm yeah whatever.
How many asses does it have?
Someone hates these cans.
would take on a whole new meaning
Question at this point is... having pigs so close to human DNA does it constitute canibalisim if you have bacon at breakfast? let alone the crap McDonalds sells for breakfast...well I guess that may as well be.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
hehehehe ... good point :)
TIA.
--
There is no hatred more pure and true than that expressed by children.
Pigs with human genes? Isn't that the republican party?
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
In the future we transplant horse and rabit genes into the human race...
No more need for vacuum pumps or viagra... Isn't the human race
heading for eternal happiness?
...sounds like my neighbours.
...um...like...a sig...
My girlfriend has been telling me for years that I'm a pig with human genes!
Dave
That criminal still has all the money needed to silence (or buy) any media other than his TV stations and newspapers/magazines, then win another couple of elections by "popular choice".
I think the other way round (humans with pig genes) has already been implemented successfully. At least i met some cases in which this would offer a perfect explanation.
Martin
Overwhelming urge to root for truffles.
Human pork?
After reading this story, I noticed that this was the current /. qotd:
"It's interesting to think that many quite distinguished people have bodies similar to yours. "
ah.
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Is it cannabalism to eat these pigs???
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
All cells in the body carry on their outer membranes molecules that identify them as being part of the body. now finding all these genes, cloning them all into pig cells AND removing all native pig recognition molecules would be the way to go, WERE IT NOT that the pig itself would not be viable 'cause its own cells are not recognized anymore. any slight amount of alien molecules left causes a massive attack of the host immunologic system (white blood cells etc). it is possible to overcome this _PARTIALLY_ by weakening the immunosystem with chemicals.
I reseached the possibilities of pig organ usage for transplantation.. believe me, it might be possible some day, but that day is WAY ahead of us.
the alternative of growing new organs from stem cells (ie programming from the ground up) is up to now a much more promising than modifying pigs (ie patch core components of a massive _unknown_ project while porting it to another OS)
my 2 eurocents
Imagine having a stallion's organ
Scientists are creating organs from genetic material, basically growing organs from part bodies. I don't know the logistics, but I'm sure they'd love to be able to create a part human with only a brain stem so we can harvest away.
They want to do that to us all right now. You have a "donor" on your driver's license, don't you?
There is surprisingly little that keeps unscrupulous people from harvesting people like us instead of using a human without the ability to speak or gain consciousness.
Those reared in a laboratory don't have pesky families that would appear on television.
c.
Sorry, my pig is a friend!
So.. Anyone care to wager how long it takes for a clerical error to allow one of these pigs to interbreed with a normal one, and produce offspring that ends up in your hotdog?
Oink!
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Would you rather eat a human with pig genes, or a pig with human genes?
What about a carrot with human genes?
I am getting really hungry! I love science!
Since we're willing to butcher them and eat them, there shouldn't be any ethical objection to butchering them for parts.
I'm not willing to butcher them & 'harvest' them for food any more than I could stick a gun in *your* ribs and harvest your wallet.
But it no surprise that a society that doesn't treat all of it's citizens with dignity would come up with such an horrific idea.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
If you add enough human genes, don't the pigs start to have rights, human rights.
So a which point is a pig just a pig?
I'm surprised they haven't tried to give pigs wings. Who here hasn't been told, atleast once, that they'll get what they want when pigs fly.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Err... umm... hey, anyone else notice that CowboyNeal is on a roll? Five stories in a row! Is there any reason that he isn't listed in the Hall of Fame with the other /. authors?
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
going to be compatible with a pig's one? I have a obvious question - isn't genetic modification on sperm only result in ONE pig growing organs histocompatible with exactly ONE person only? oh well...
Or did they completely eliminated the MHC gene?
Besides, I'm a vegetarian.
Newsflash --
In other news today, scientists have created an artificial tofu-based organ, utilizing genetically engineered soybeans. The resulting organs are said to be whitish in color, and quote -- "rather soft and squishy, but low in fat and cholesterol free."
However, not all are pleased with the development. Vegetable rights activists have condemned the move as a violation of leguminous rights, pointing out that the modifications could inflict pain and suffering to the bushy crops, while Environmentalists and Anti-GMO protestors brought up the danger that the genetically engineered plants could spread out of control, leading to giant mutant soybeans roaming the streets, ravishing our daughters, and voting republican.
Other critics have more practical concerns. Said one scientist, "We haven't fully researched the possibility that vegitransplantation may introduce foreign viruses into the human population. My god, what would happen if the soybean leaf-spot virus were to break into the human population? What's more, the synthetic organs are bland and tasteless."
The research team countered, however, that most humans don't have leaves. "Besides, the organs will adsorb flavors from whoever they're transplanted into."
It is unknown when the organs will be suitable for use in humans. However, scientists believe they are already suitable for use in Spicy Ma-po Bean Curd and Buddha Delight Combo #6, pending approval by the FDA and Ming's Peking Imperial Inn.
--by Jesse Chang
...italian power... that's it!
Are these creatures pigs with human organs, or humans with the skin of a pig?
Order yours!
The reason is that with pigs, they can really delete, add, or replace whatever genes they like; obviously; with human donors they obviously can't.
..."Please don't eat me. Oink."
I know a lot of people who seem to have pig genes in their brains & hearts.
... some humans have a lot of pigs genes, so why not ?
Couple that with people's attitudes towards cloning, and what kind of chance do half-human pigs have?
Probably, although it wouldn't involve machines. One way this might work is as follows. A doctor would take a sample of your DNA and place it into an egg, creating a clone. That egg can be carried by a surrogate mother, or possibly implanted back into you (eggs can develop pretty much anywhere). When the organ that is needed has started to form, the embryo is removed, the developing organ is removed from the embryo, transplanted into you, and the rest of the embryo destroyed. When the transplanted organ has matured, your original defective organ is removed.
Some organs might need to develop long enough that it becomes a concern whether the developing embryo has some kind of higher brain activity. In that case, the doctor could make sure that the embryo develops without higher brain functions--it would start out ``brain dead'', roughly the same way at which we already harvest organs.
Where does one draw the line ethically? Hard to say. I find it difficult to see why human cloning should raise significant ethical problems as long as the clone does not develop higher brain functions.
Anyone out there think that maybe if we make the pig organs too human like, the pig may start rejecting them. Now that would be a P.R. fiasco, pigs rejecting their own organs due to human tampering, I wish the provided more info on this aspect in the article.
Visualize Whirled Peas
and it doesn't involve cruelty or experiments with animals, and it's called "donor cards".
www.6502asm.com - Code 6502 assembly or.. DIE!!
Man, pigs with human hearts, who'd have thought it.
I never expected genetics to solve the problem of police brutality.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
does eating bacon now make me a cannibal?
This would be excelent material for viruses to cross genetic boundies. We already have BSE, AIDS who knows whats next?
By suggesting that pigs have actually descended from humans you have forever hurt my religious beliefs. Lots of bad karma for Slashdot. Lots and lots and lots of bad karma for Slashdot!
Next you will start publishing wicked evolutionary communist propaganda that Darwin was actually right. I shall ban my wife and kids from reading Slashdot immediately.
When Slashdot becomes Sodom and Gomorrah the wrath of God will be so strong that even Stallman cannot lead you to the promised land of better open source software.
Check this article in New Scientist. The researchers have found a way of increasing the effectiveness by a factor of 25 , and it is so easy that the technique could be done on a farm. Incredible. Smells like a revolution to me.
Bitter and proud of it.
First I'd like to comment what a cool thing this is. This is one more politically correct step to extending human life. Those moves are hard enough to find, let alone make possible. Politics be damned.
Now on to my attempt at being funny:
This is also one more step to extending the argument that "men are pigs." I knew it would be said, so I wanted to be the first to say it so it would appear to be original.
My first reaction was to make some comment about being kosher, but then I don't give a rat's ass about that whole god myth and I care even less for it when it causes droves of people to violate their own religious law. (Killing for God is okay?)
Damnit... I don't feel funny at all... I think I'll go back to sleep...
Is it as tasty as chicken?
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
Heh.
BytesTemplar.com
Hmmm... I'd dare say my mother-in-law qualifies, without even having surgery.
:)
What, oh yeah, sorry. Gut reaction.
If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business. -Thackeray, William
This comment was generated by a Herd of Transgenic Pigs for distributed.karma (566687).
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
I have two words for you: Resident Evil
belongs on theonion, IMO :)
LOL!
My gene have a 36" inseam, and I think the legs would be a bit long for any pig.
The pig retroviruses are quite lethal and can cross the species barrier. One of which alters the chromosomal DNA of the male sperm and is passed on via mating. If this passes to humans we're all in deep shit after 3-4 generations (120 yrs or so). Xenotransplantation is funded in part by large pharma companies utilising their new rejection therapies. The push is huge and the controls are few.
Take a close look on the next speach from the White House ;-)
Why would you wanna put a pig in human jeans?
:)
Sorry
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Yum! GOOD EATING!
Pete's Pig Roast is now seating Donner Party of five... er, four!
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
...law schools report a sudden unexplained surge in applications.
If this technique turns out to be applicable to human sperm, it seems like it would be used for creating designer babies (with all the ethical issues that might cause).
If you know that the parents have a genetic defect which will be passed to their children, it seems only logical to try and fix that genetic defect at the earliest possible stage of development.
Of course, if the technology becomes "reliable", I could see vain & shallow parents asking for specific hair/skin/eye colors, "make sure they're athletic gods", etc.
And how about the possibility of extending the telemorase cap of the fertilized cell? At some increased risk of cancer, you might be able to extend the kid's lifetime to some obscene length of time (if the telemorase length is the only cell division "counter").
lunch time and I need a bacon transplant.
save a plant, eat a cow
I knew i couldnt be the only one manipulating swine sperm.
Why stick up for big business?
Hmm...... Bacon, or Heart? Bacon, or Heart? What a choice.... I think it would be a good thing that way all of the animal will be used, although you might start getting urges to eat from a slop bucket and squeal alot... (sounds like my ex)
There are plenty of people who, by the way they act (and look), definitely got pig genes!!!!
There is a name for that. It's called French.
Pigs, like many species, have a large number of resident viruses, particularly retroviruses. They and the pigs are well-adapted for each other, and the pigs show little to no ill effect. Some of them are likely so benign to the pigs that we have no idea that they're there. (Indeed, many of these are revealed only by genetic analysis.)
But then what do we want to do? Stick a pig organ in Grandma to save her life, or at least prolong it for a while? So, we've got a person who was unhealthy to begin with, we introduce dozens of foreign viruses directly into the body, and, to top it all off, we completely suppress the immune system so that the organ isn't rejected. I'm not sure that I can even imagine a a scenario more favorable for a virus to make the species jump. And if one did, you can bet that we wouldn't have much natural resistance to it...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
if we were to fry these guys up... would that make us cannibals?
Upon the replacement of your heart/liver, you can have an excelent meal of ham, pork chops, and so much more!
Like the ones that give them half-hour orgasms...
"And like that
Not a very neat fellow by the way.
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
Yeah, I saw something about this on TV, too. Kramer found a pig-man at a hospital.
Where's Duke Nukem when we need him?
There have been countless of fatal diseases that haven't touched humans due to the differences in dna. However, if we are now blurring the line between pigs and humans could these new pigs contract our diseases or vice versa. Pigs are not exactly clean animals, and our protien farms are far from sanitary.
Something to think about.
this was more of a segfault piece, imho
RIP
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Sounds like your typical slashbot.
I think they should create a pig that creates O+ and every other type human compatible blood. Then we could have farms of blood donor pigs. The red cross could setup this ultra sterile facility just for harvesting blood.
As for the organs, I think this is a great step forward in being able to save peoples lives. However, my preferred method would be to grow cloned organs in vats. I think it would be cool if you could pay a company and they would take a blood sample from you and make a whole bunch of organs and put them in the deep freeze so when you need them, all the doctor has todo is make a phone call and ta-da, a copy of your existing heart shows up in 3 hours.
In a more far fetched idea...keeping with the idea that you could in the future transfer your brain to a computer, you could start cloning a copy of yourself and when the clones ready, transfer your essence into the new body! Though, how you could go the other direction really isn't clear.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Hmmmm. Interesting.
Relive the BBS Past - One Byte at a Time! www.ssabbs.com
Two legs good.
Four legs better!
Farmers have been attempting to do this with sheep for years - or maybe they were just lonely.
I find it odd that people think having a GMO body part inside them is a good idea if it saves their life but they wont eat GMO food even if they are starving to death. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/zam bia020902.html
Why have 1 person driving a backhoe when you could employ 20 with shovels?
I ate my bacon with some fava beans, and a nice Chianti.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
humans with pig genes been around for centuries.
look around you.
Jerry when will you open your eyes! That the federal government has been splicing pig DNA with that of a human. Pigman I saw him! I wandered into the wrong room. He was just waking up from a nap when he saw me and let out this horrible yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!
I got my pig heart a few years ago and it works fine, but my wife just had twins, and one looks kinda like a pig.
I used to live in Hawaii. I wondered why Pacific Islanders liked Spam (the meat product) so much. They even make sushi out of it.
My roommate told me that Spam was supposedly closest in taste to 'long pig.' In case you don't know what a 'long pig' is, YOU are long pig.
Pacific Islanders supposedly like spam because it tastes like people.
Now, I know this must be an urban legend. However, there may be another market for these modified pigs. If not Pacific Islanders, surely Goths and Satanists...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
We shouldn't be bothering with this. We should be working to clone individual human organs (no rejection b/c it is 100% compatible). This has already been done in steers, now let's do it in humans (voluntary) instead of animals (involuntary).
Have they not heard/seen/read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:Restaurant at the End of the Universe?
Tsk.
Max.
..for Halloween!
So has anyone thought about the possibility that this technique could be used to say add Genes to people. if the requirements as far as lab equipment and time are so low and the rate of expression so high what's to keep labs from adding favorable genetic traits to humans. you to could the proud parent of the next generation of long distance runners or Olympic class weightlifters. Ask your self what are the simply must have genetic traits for the next generation you could be the envy of all the soccer moms on you block.
This animal will look like a pig, but deep in its heart it will be human...
So, I'd be able to run around shouting, "Iiiiiiii'mmmmmmmmm BACON!!!!!"
Humacon...the human bacon.
I am sure that the correct title should be Humans with Pig Genes. The US Government has already done a study proving this a long time ago. So americans should be prety to take advantage of organ transplants from pigs any day now.
Buon Giorno Miss Piggy, you are looking lovely today. :)
In the words of Eric Cartman,
"Nobody's splicing nothing with Fluffy!!!!"
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
We just call them "cops" around here.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
that's A Modest Proposal?
no google html version.... : /
Mod me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Wouldn't it be better to have synthetic organs made? You have more control over them and the are no ethical issues.