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Wise Young
04-02-2007, 02:47 PM
I know Dr. Zanjani. He used adult stem cells to do this. So, let me explain why this is so interesting and special.

He takes bone marrow cells from a human donor and injects intraperitoneally into a sheep fetus. The fetus incorporates the cells into its own develop and as much as 15% of the cells in the sheep are human. The organs of these sheep are partly compatible with the donor. In fact, they can be completely compatible when all the sheep cells die and only the human cells remain, i.e. those that are the same as the donors.

He did this without embyronic stem cells or the prohibition on implanting human embryonic stem cells into animal fetuses....

Wise.


http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=444436&in_page_id=1770
Now scientists create a sheep that's 15% human
By CLAUDIA JOSEPH - More by this author » Last updated at 15:53pm on 27th March 2007

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.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/03_02/sheep240307_486x386.jpg

rfbdorf
04-02-2007, 04:05 PM
Wow, what a wonderful idea - there's a fantastic potential there!
However, I expect that many people (fundamentalists?) will be outraged at this "tampering."
This also may give new meaning to "I'll be a monkey's uncle!"
- Richard

Lindox
04-02-2007, 04:38 PM
What 15%?

Where are the organs promoted as being 15% human?
Or is this 15% blood factors?

And since some primates share so much of our DNA are they not that precentage human? And we that percentage ape?

What good will 15% do in organ replacements?
I imagine somewhere we already share 15% genetics with the sheep.

IMO it would be more beneficial to do this chimera experiment on a chimp foetus. Or is that just tooo scarry for humans?