I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the story “The Island of Doctor Moreau”? The story was about a scientist who developed human hybrid animals. At the time it came out it was fiction, but it did disturb some people. Well as often happens fiction has become reality. For different reasons scientists are now telling us they have to develop human hybrid animals. Supposedly all the reasons have to do with improving the health of humans, but not everyone agrees with this procedure. There are sometimes intermediate steps which take place in the progression of technology which don’t last for long. We are experiencing this in the auto industry with hybrid cars which have both an electric power source and a gasoline one. It is only a matter of time before electric wins over. The same is true with the development of human organs in animals. In this case it seems it is only a matter of time before laboratory grown organs, grown from our own cells win over, but until then hybrid animals are on the venue.

One of the favorite animals to use for a hybrid is the pig. Pigs are like humans in some ways thus making them a candidate for human organ growth. One of the problems is the acute shortage of organs. Every ten minutes another person goes on to the organ list. There is no way to keep up with the demand, thus scientists and doctors feel they need another way to get organs and they need it now, otherwise they could probably wait for lab grown organs to be perfected. When a human-animal hybrid is created it is known as a Chimera. A Chimera is an organism which contains cells from two different species. The United States does not allow public funding for experiments involving Chimeras created with human cells. Of the two methods for creating a Chimera the one with the most chance of success is introducing the foreign cells into the embryo. The other method is transplanting organs and body parts, but this runs the risk of rejection.

We were just informed in January 2017 scientists had successfully created the first successful human pig hybrid. This was the first time embryos from two largely distant related species were able to be combined to produce a Chimera. In case you don’t already know this, parts of animals have been transplanted into humans. One example is pig heart valves. One method being pursued is adding human genes to animal organs, so they won’t be rejected if used by humans. There is a farm in Virginia called GalSafe which is doing this. Experimentation has been going on for a while in this area and a pig’s heart was kept alive inside a baboon’s stomach for 945 days. It was not functioning as a heart for the baboon however. Twenty-one people die every day in the United States, because they needed an organ but none was available.

There have been a lot of experiments with animal organs being put into humans, but the human immune system rejects them. Scientists are trying another method to avoid this, they want to target the genes which reject foreign organs. We are at a point where we seem to be at the start of a revolution in medicine. If we can alter the human immune system to not reject animal organs this will give us time to perfect growing organs in the laboratory. As we work with stem cells we may find they can repair deteriorating organs. This would be the ideal way to go unless we can detect problems before birth and correct them in the womb. When non-identical twins are born there is a good chance they have absorbed cells from their brother or sister. Thus they have the cells of another person in them. This doesn’t make them a Chimera since the cells are not from a different species. Mice have been used as hybrids and the differences in them were quite apparent. The hybrid mice were calmer than the aggressive mice, which were used, but not as calm as the other mice which were used. A rat pancreas has also been put into a mouse’s body.

Chimeras have been created from different kinds of animals. One which was created was a Goat-Sheep Chimera. The scientists had named it a Geep. One of the things scientists say they have to consider is the speed in which an organ is available. A human organ takes an average of three years to get, but one grown in an animal can be ready in about five months. Time can be crucial in many cases and one of the most important factors in getting organs to someone. Even if animal grown organs are not the final solution, maybe they can keep someone alive until a human organ is available.

The US National Institutes of Health announced in 2015 they might lift the ban on human-animal Chimeras, but there was a caveat and it was each experiment had to undergo an extra review before funding could be approved. Why are humans so worried about creating a Chimera? The answer is a simple one, there is a worry human cells might reach an animal’s brain which would give the animal some of our behaviors and abilities. The last thing anyone wants is a human like animal. It wouldn’t be good for humans and certainly not good for the animal. No one wants to create a human mind in an animal.

Not all scientists in the United States think the ban on creating human-animal Chimeras is justified. Stanford University scientists have condemned the ban and said it delays discoveries in a promising field of medicine. Their exact words in a letter were, “impedes scientific progress in regenerative medicine and should be lifted.” I guess they are more worried about humans than animals. It is kind of a longshot to think creating human-animals would create human brains in animals and I can see the need for more organs overriding all other concerns. No one wants an animal to suffer and they shouldn’t be used in experiments unless they are crucial to saving human lives, so yes the second review is probably a good thing. We don’t want to create these hybrids for the purpose of testing makeup.