Mary had a little lamb whose embryonic body contained 0.01% human cells. Is that good or baaaaad? The background is this: “a team led by researchers at Stanford University has created a sheep/human hybrid.”* Here’s the understatement: “Such research tends to be contentious….” No kidding.
Presented by Pablo Ross at the Annual Meeting of the AAAS, the research reveals work done on interspecies blastocyst complementation for the purpose of generating human organs in animals. Entitled “Towards Xenogeneic Generation of Human Organs,” the research was probably well meant, the project used human stem cells to make a sheep-human embryo through the use of CRISPR. Imagine that, or don’t. The end, of course, is a supply of ready-made human organs—good for the recipient, bad for the sheep.
We’re long past Dolly the cloned sheep, aren’t we? I can think of the gooood: No more going to the store to buy a coat because we’ll produce our own wool: Just grow it in autumn and shear it in spring. I’ve never seen a sheep shiver, so I’m guessing its wool keeps it warm. And if mountain sheep get to participate, sheep-humans might even be more sure-footed over uneven terrain. Think. Fewer falls mean a savings in emergency room costs. Certainly, the new hybrid will engender new TV food shows and celebrity chefs: Gourmet Grasses, Awful Offal Chefs, and Mutton for Nothin’.
Are there dangers? Isn’t there a chance that with a sheep/human body part, the recipient will become “contentious,” butting heads with anyone who disagrees or challenges? We already have enough head-butting in our species, don’t we? And now that we know the dangers of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) we should be especially concerned about a built-in system for tau protein accumulation.
This sheep/human business is troubling in other ways. Do we isolate from or intermix the members of this new “breed.” Will they have their own ghetto? Gated community? Segregated farm, maybe hybridizing Romanov sheep for Russians and Suffolk sheep for Englishmen? Will there be protests over their short lives and exploitation? Will sheep/humans be used in sacrifices during the Hindu festival of Yadnya Kasada? That’s the festival in Indonesia that appeases the god of Mount Bromo with sheep thrown into the volcano.
Ewe understand, don’t you?
* https://phys.org/news/2018-02-successful-human-animal-hybrid-sheep-embryo.html and
https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2018/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/20877
Presented by Pablo Ross at the Annual Meeting of the AAAS, the research reveals work done on interspecies blastocyst complementation for the purpose of generating human organs in animals. Entitled “Towards Xenogeneic Generation of Human Organs,” the research was probably well meant, the project used human stem cells to make a sheep-human embryo through the use of CRISPR. Imagine that, or don’t. The end, of course, is a supply of ready-made human organs—good for the recipient, bad for the sheep.
We’re long past Dolly the cloned sheep, aren’t we? I can think of the gooood: No more going to the store to buy a coat because we’ll produce our own wool: Just grow it in autumn and shear it in spring. I’ve never seen a sheep shiver, so I’m guessing its wool keeps it warm. And if mountain sheep get to participate, sheep-humans might even be more sure-footed over uneven terrain. Think. Fewer falls mean a savings in emergency room costs. Certainly, the new hybrid will engender new TV food shows and celebrity chefs: Gourmet Grasses, Awful Offal Chefs, and Mutton for Nothin’.
Are there dangers? Isn’t there a chance that with a sheep/human body part, the recipient will become “contentious,” butting heads with anyone who disagrees or challenges? We already have enough head-butting in our species, don’t we? And now that we know the dangers of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) we should be especially concerned about a built-in system for tau protein accumulation.
This sheep/human business is troubling in other ways. Do we isolate from or intermix the members of this new “breed.” Will they have their own ghetto? Gated community? Segregated farm, maybe hybridizing Romanov sheep for Russians and Suffolk sheep for Englishmen? Will there be protests over their short lives and exploitation? Will sheep/humans be used in sacrifices during the Hindu festival of Yadnya Kasada? That’s the festival in Indonesia that appeases the god of Mount Bromo with sheep thrown into the volcano.
Ewe understand, don’t you?
* https://phys.org/news/2018-02-successful-human-animal-hybrid-sheep-embryo.html and
https://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2018/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/20877
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