FACTS:
Despite only living one week after coming to term, the hybrid chimeras were the first of their kind to make it this far. Ultimately, the scientists are hoping this is the beginning of larger projects to grow human organs for transplant. More than 400 embryos were started in sows, but only two of the hybrids were born. Scientists used monkey cells instead of human cells to avoid the chance that any brain cells could have ended up being human. While this experiment wasn’t suitable for harvesting any organs, it presented a crucial step towards tissue engineering.
QUOTES:
Paul Knoepfler at the University of California, Davis: “Given the extremely low chimeric efficiency and the deaths of all the animals, I actually see this as fairly discouraging,”
SOURCE:
You can read the source article from the ‘Protein & Cell’ journal here.