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It is a historic image. A team of researchers in China has successfully generated a blueprint of a human organ in another animal for the first time. The experiment, conducted with humanized kidneys in pig embryos, represents a step toward the still-distant dream of using other mammals as an inexhaustible source of organs for transplants. These hybrid organisms — called chimeras, after the mythological monster with the head of a lion, the belly of a goat and the tail of a dragon — still pose major ethical dilemmas.
Researchers at the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health have reprogrammed adult human cells to recover their capacity to form any bodily organ or tissue. The team has inserted these pluripotent human cells into pig embryos, which are genetically modified beforehand so that they do not develop porcine kidneys. The human cells have filled that empty niche and generated a rudimentary kidney, an intermediate stage of the renal system called mesonephros. These pig-human embryos were gestated in sows for up to 28 days, about a quarter of the species’ normal period of pregnancy. Half of the cells in their kidneys are human.
Led by Chinese scientist Liangxue Lai, this work continues down the road initiated by Spanish researcher Juan Carlos Izpisua’s team. In 2017, Izpisua announced the creation of pig-human embryos that had barely one human cell for every 100,000 porcine cells. Those pioneering experiments were conducted at the University of Murcia (Spain) and on two Murcian farms. The trials came after intense debate by a committee of experts at the Carlos III Health Institute; ultimately, the committee authorized the trials despite “the biological risks inherent in the generation of pig-human chimeras,” but with the condition that no animal with human cells could reproduce.
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Researchers at the Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health have reprogrammed adult human cells to recover their capacity to form any bodily organ or tissue. The team has inserted these pluripotent human cells into pig embryos, which are genetically modified beforehand so that they do not develop porcine kidneys. The human cells have filled that empty niche and generated a rudimentary kidney, an intermediate stage of the renal system called mesonephros. These pig-human embryos were gestated in sows for up to 28 days, about a quarter of the species’ normal period of pregnancy. Half of the cells in their kidneys are human.
Led by Chinese scientist Liangxue Lai, this work continues down the road initiated by Spanish researcher Juan Carlos Izpisua’s team. In 2017, Izpisua announced the creation of pig-human embryos that had barely one human cell for every 100,000 porcine cells. Those pioneering experiments were conducted at the University of Murcia (Spain) and on two Murcian farms. The trials came after intense debate by a committee of experts at the Carlos III Health Institute; ultimately, the committee authorized the trials despite “the biological risks inherent in the generation of pig-human chimeras,” but with the condition that no animal with human cells could reproduce.
The first human organ created inside an animal opens the door to manufacturing ‘spare parts’ for people
In an experiment that raises bioethical issues, researchers in China have generated a blueprint of a humanized kidney in a pig embryo
