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The Chimera Dilemma Manifested in Sheep
Rollie Hawk writes "While many limits on stem cell research exist in the United States, scientist are finding wants to straddle or at least blur the line between man and animal. It's not quite The Island of Doctor Moreau, but it's bringing a pantheon of ethical dilemmas, nonetheless.
The creation of chimeras, named for the mythical beast composed of parts from several different animals, has been in the news off and on for the last few months. The latest case involves around 50 sheep said to possess at least partially human organs.
These heavily modded sheep are growning human-like organs such as livers, hearts, and blood. All of these could eventually be close enough to the real thing to be harvested as replacements parts.
If that doesn't shock you, consider one other human organ that is being grown in some of these sheep: human brains. While it is doubtful that anyone would want a brain transplant from a human-sheep chimera, it does hold the possibility for doing brain research that would never be allowed on human beings.
That is, unless, the brains end up being too human. Just the possibility of a human mind bouncing around inside a sheep's head is a scary proposition."
Well, the wife never complained when she found I was part horse.
What has the world came to?
Haven't we done that? Timothy is a living example of a Sheep grown brain transplanted into a human ;-)
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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Two researchers were discussing this topic on Science Friday last week.
The thing that kept running through my mind as I listened to the discussion was how someone with enough money could run circles around these ethics panels and produce chimeras off-shore.
Now that Bush has made the political (rather than scientific) decision to limit stem cell lines, this activity will most certainly occur outside of the US and beyond any jurisdiction of American ethics organizations.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
While it is doubtful that anyone would want a brain transplant from a human-sheep chimera
It would explain how the Patriot Act and the DCMA got passed.
Ba dump bump! Thanks, I'll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitresses.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Human brains in sheep? Now that's just plain *COOL* Hacking the genes.. loads of fun!
I don't know why so many people get upset about this kind of thing.. I mean, if my mom had something like CJD from eating euro-beef 10 years ago, and you could sacrifice a legion of humo-sheep hybrid brains to save her.. Sacrifice away! Myself, I have a damaged heart.. if I could have a new one, I'd kill any number of chimera sheep to get it. I want to watch my boy grow up, not die at 35. Oh, and you go tell that hypotetical burn victim why he'll be deformed for the rest of his life, because he can't have the artificial skin developed from chimera sheep in Qwai Pong Province china, because his narrow minded government doesn't think it's ethical.
In the balance of life, they're sheep. Who cares? Grow them in vats for all I care. As long as this is all done in a clean room environment, so we can minimize the risk of having superbug's crossing the sheep human barrier...
-=-Ze End-=-
Just injecting some human brain cells into a sheep or even transplanting an early human brain from a fetus is unlikely to produce any kind of human sheep. The human brain doesn't just develop from a genetic blueprint but also requires a huge amount of deveelopmental cues and responds to hormones and signaling molecules (like sonic the hedgehog) to develop properly. Not to mention a host of enviornmental stimuli needed to encourage the brain to wire itself correctly.
In short it isn't just human neurons which make us human but the whole brain development system at work in babies. This isn't the sort of thing which could be duplicated in a sheep without extensive genetic modification or hand controlling all the developmental signals. If this is possible at all it is far beyond our current level of technology.
So don't get freaked out yet people. They are just growing human neurons in sheep at the moment there is no chance we will make a person trapped in a sheep body.
God damn these popular stories can be misleading.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
the committee recommended closely monitoring the mice's behavior and immediately killing any that display human-like behavior.
You know when considering a solution to that particular ethical dilemma that wasn't the first idea that came to mind...
I stole this Sig
better question: should Welshmen start to be charged with rape when they bugger them?
-Ab
Nothing fails quite like prayer.
"Stanford law professor Hank Greely, who chaired the ethics committee, said the board was satisfied that the size and shape of the mouse brain would prevent the human cells from creating any traits of humanity. Just in case, Greely said, the committee recommended closely monitoring the mice's behavior and immediately killing any that display human-like behavior."
OK, I can just see it now:
"Same thing we do every night, Pinky, try to take over the" [splat!]
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Injecting human DNA into sheep is nothing new to lonely shepherds..
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
I have to say, as a medical student, that I am quite excited about the possibilities presented by this type of research. To be able to conduct research on tissue systems that are more human will provide better models for treatment of disease in humans. Thus making medicine more effective and safer. That being said, I am appalled at the prospect of ANY form of human hervous system running around in ANY other type of creature. True, it could provide tremendous insight into how the human brain works. However, it is my belief that the brian is the center of our humanity. It is the seat of who we are as a species, and is unique in the world. To artificially develop this type of tissue in an animal mode really seems to be an ethical misjudgement. A public backlash to this type of research could jeopardize research in general, which would be a disservice to the scientific community.
For fuck's sake. It's pretty much just agreed the world over that science will be constantly used to create new and horrible weapons that could kill increasingly large numbers of people in increasingly horrible ways, but that strangely enough it's expected will never be used. You tell someone about Russia restarting its nuclear weapons research program and people just shrug and go, meh, they do that.
But if it turns out science might be at some point to do something that, rather than being horrific and violent, is merely strange, people freak the fuck out. A bomb that can kill billions in a single moment is shrugged off as normal. But tell someone that someone might be growing sheep with human livers, and what's the response? Oh no! What a horrible perversion of nature! Why do we continue to let such horrible things happen! Never mind that this, you know, has the capacity to save lives or create useful technology on a huge scale. It's "unnatural!" Of course, so is fire and clothing and the internet. But for some reason those are okay and genetic engineering is not.
Mankind has the capacity to do strange and wonderful things, and instead of trying to find exactly where our capacities lie we're holding back everywhere just based on pure grossout factor.
If the reason we're holding back scientific progress is actually "ethics"-- people complaining about genetics and such keep using that word, I am not sure they know what it means-- I want to know why they're worrying so much about sheep in laboratory conditions with some slightly strange DNA in their brains and totally ignoring the relatively horrible conditions that totally normal sheep, chickens, etc are being bred and harvested in on a worldwide scale. The worldwide march of technology and progress has brought a lot of horrible things, but we shrug, decide we don't care, and eat our chicken mcnuggets anyway. So why freak out so much over these sheep? If the rediculously unlikely situation we turn out to have created sheep with thinking, feeling human brains, okay, give them legal rights and a social security card and move on with your lives. I assure you, this isn't worse than what happened to the contents of those chicken mcnuggets, just a little bit wierder.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Go hug some trees.