Half human, half animal: Japan is progressing in the creation of hybrid embryos

Japan has decided to support one of its scientists to advance the creation of animal embryos containing human cells. Hiromitsu Nakauchi, who also heads research teams at universities in Tokyo and Stanford, California, will cultivate in the Asian country cell human in mouses and some ratsthen transplant these embryos into "surrogate animals".

The stated goal is to generate new sources of organ procurement for transplants in humans, said the specialist at the scientific journal Nature. The publication also warned that the "investigation" must pbad barriers ethics and technicians".

Nakauchi is the first scientist to receive support from the Japanese government to experiment with hybrid embryos after, last March, this country revoked the prohibition of this technique in force. Experiments of this type have already been conducted in the United States but are not completed. Although the laws of this country allow this type of investigation, the government has not funded them since 2015.

Nakauchi's experiments were endorsed by a committee of experts from the Japanese Ministry of Science and we expect the same department to grant final approval next month. After the approval of the committee, Nakauchi said that he would proceed slowly, that he was not expecting to create human organs in the short term and that he would not seek to realize an experience.

In principle, the scientist will create hybrid mouse embryos that will grow until the day 14 and a halfwhen the organs are widely developed. Then he will do the same experiments on the rats, but let them grow until the day 15 and a half. Finally, Nakauchi will ask the government of his country for permission to create hybrid embryos in pigs and develop them up to 70 days.

Doubts of scientists

Some experts in Bioethics They worried about the possibility that the human cells used could leave the chosen organ and reach the brain of the developing animal, which could affect his cognition. The Japanese scientist said that when designing the experiment, he took into account these concerns and that he was trying to "generate organs in a directed manner", so that the cells would only move to this body.

The strategy explored by Nakauchi and other scientists is to create an animal embryo devoid of the gene necessary for the production of a given organ, and then to inject "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPS) . IPS cells are those that were postponed to an embryonic state that can give growth to almost all types of cells.

Growing up, the animal uses these human cells to produce the organ, which you could not do with your own cells.