Japanese scientists want to cross animals with humans for transplants

Cultured human stamens in mouse, rat, and pig embryos must be transplanted into surrogate animals as part of the research. But how can everything be done? "The experiment will create animal embryos that lack the gene to produce certain organs," researcher Hiromic Nakauchi told Reuters.

After human pluripotency (can be a source of all types of cells), cells, or IPS cells, is injected into the germs, the embryo will then use them to form the organ.

According to the plans, the mouse embryos must age for 14.5 days to almost development. This will last 15.5 days in rats and 70 in pigs.

The experiment focuses only on the cultivation of new organs. If scientists find that more than 30 percent of the human brain is human, it will reject it. This is one of the conditions of the Japanese government to prevent the emergence of humanized animals and indeed dangerous hybrids.

This proposal is the first approved since March, when Japan lifted the ban on the development of human embryos with human cells.

Until this March, there – as in Theio – was the banning of similar human-animal chimeras. However, the legislation has been changed and it is now possible to seek approval for a research project that could include development and birth of a creature with human cells. First permission was granted to researchers from Tokyo University.

It is a question, widely discussed even in professional circles, whether this is one of the right ways to improve the possibilities for transplantation. In any case, the goal is to investigate how laboratory animals might work, but scientists would like it to eventually become a source of organs that can be transplanted to humans.

As expert Nakauchi himself, his team successfully treated a diabetic mouse by growing his healthy new pancreas using rat embryos a year ago.