SALT LAKE CITY — Japan has granted a stem-cell scientist permission to inject human cells into surrogate animal embryos
Before you start worrying about things like the frightening digital “Cats” actors becoming real, keep in mind “chimera” experiments involve editing the genes of animal embryos in order to produce transplantable human organs.
According to Nature Magazine, Hiromitsu Nakauchi, who works at the University of Tokyo and Stanford University, received permission from the Japanese government to potentially create mice or rats with human organs that can be transplanted to people.
Nakauchi plans to begin experimentation with rat and mice embryos after receiving final approval for the project next month. The embryos would be grown in 14.5 days for mice and 15.5 days for rats. Nakauchi also hopes to apply for permission to experiment on pig embryos.
The scientist claims his eventual goal is to develop viable pancreases that can be transplanted into a human body, which, as Stanford Medicine notes, could alleviate the current shortage of organ donors and eliminate the need for immunosuppression drugs that help prevent transplanted organ rejection.
Wired notes these chimeras are made possible through the Crispr-Cas9 gene-editing tool, which allows scientists to remove the genes in embryos that allow animals to grow organs like hearts and pancreases. Injected human stem cells then fill in the gaps, creating human-animal hybrids.
Gizmodo reports that scientists have experimented with creating chimeras in the past, but the subjects were regularly terminated before birth due to ethical concerns. Some countries have recently softened to the experiments — Naturenotes that a ban on human-animal embryos was lifted in Japan last March.
According to Time, the United States National Institutes of Health indicated in 2016 it would lift a ban on human-animal stem cell research — however, reproduction studies involving chimeras are still banned.