Sheep That’s 15% Human Created for Transplants

A University of Nevada scientist has created a human-sheep chimera which could grow genetically matched organs for transplant into humans.

Sheep Human Chimera Photo Chimera: sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells

Scientists have created the world’s first human-sheep chimera – which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs. The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells – and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.

Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep’s foetus. He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.

The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep’s foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant.

“We would take a couple of ounces of bone marrow cells from the patient,’ said Prof Zanjani, whose work is highlighted in a Channel 4 programme tomorrow. “We would isolate the stem cells from them, inject them into the peritoneum of these animals and then these cells would get distributed throughout the metabolic system into the circulatory system of all the organs in the body. The two ounces of stem cell or bone marrow cell we get would provide enough stem cells to do about ten foetuses. So you don’t just have one organ for transplant purposes, you have many available in case the first one fails.”

At present 7,168 patients are waiting for an organ transplant in Britain alone, and two thirds of them are expected to die before an organ becomes available. Scientists at King’s College, London, and the North East Stem Cell Institute in Newcastle have now applied to the HFEA, the Government’s fertility watchdog, for permission to start work on the chimeras.

But the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race. Dr Patrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, warned: “Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV.”

Animal rights activists fear that if the cells get mixed together, they could end up with cellular fusion, creating a hybrid which would have the features and characteristics of both man and sheep. But Prof Zanjani said: “Transplanting the cells into foetal sheep at this early stage does not result in fusion at all.”

It’s an intriguing concept, especially since the process takes only two months. This could save thousands of lives a year.

On the other hand, it’s undeniably creepy. Preemptive Karma‘s Becky has visions of a “semi-human brain stuck inside a lamb’s body” and worries about “the possibility that we could end up sending the semi-human lambs to the slaughterhouse for human consumption.”

My knowledge of advanced genetics research is minimal indeed but I suspect that possession of human DNA in the brain isn’t going to make the sheep any smarter. Still, this may be the classic case of our scientific capabilities getting ahead of our ethical debate.

Wired‘s Steven Edwards notes that the data on long term effects of inter-species transplants is not in and that the FDA has, in other cases, required recipients of such transplants to sign agreements promising not to reproduce.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Mark says:

    Manbearpig comes one step closer to reality…

  2. Eneils Bailey says:

    Would you care for a delicious leg o’ lamb with mint jelly and new liver?

    nah nah nah…

  3. C.Wagener says:

    Do they all wear Che Guerra t-shirts?

  4. What I note is the way they hide that this is adult stem cells being used (as opposed to fetal stem cells). Should we be doing this is a good ethical and scientific question to be having. But it also plays into the whole stem cell debate.

    There are a variety of drugs that we use which were or are based on animals. Saying that its okay to prolong human life with insulin made from sheep, but not a liver or heart is questionable to me. The fact that human DNA is being used to make the liver or heart viable for transplant doesn’t bother me. Trying to ‘uplift’ a sheep to the intelligence of a human does give me concern. Less because of the probability of success and more because of the possibility of the middle state that it would achieve.

  5. hln says:

    It does seem like a baaaaaad idea. People are sheeplike enough as is.

    hln

  6. spacemonkey says:

    Soylent lamb!

    It’s……sheeple!

  7. Slippery slope. At 51%? So much of this depends on how it’s spun, and ethical choices aren’t usually supposed to be so sensitive to marketing.

    I wish I had simple bright lines for this one.

  8. ganon says:

    When you be playin god you will be screwed cause the gods are going to take you out!!!!!!

  9. ganon says:

    NO!