Chinese scientists added genes from the human brain to monkeys

Scientists in China have created a new type of monkey. He has a gene of the human brain. And that could make his intelligence a bit more like ours.

This, in turn, makes his fate – and his very existence – extremely morally charged.

In a study published last month in Beijing National Science Journal newspaper, the researchers took human copies of the The MCPH1 gene, which is thought to play an important role in the development of our brain, introduced it into monkey embryos by means of a virus that carried it.

Of the 11 transgenic macaque monkeys that they generated, six died. The five survivors underwent a series of tests, including MRI brain tests and memory tests. It turned out that they did not have as big a brain as a macaque control group, but they performed better in short-term memory tasks. Their brains also developed over a longer period, which is typical of human brains.

Although the sample size is very small, scientists enthusiastically described the study as "the first attempt to experimentally interrogate the genetic basis of the origin of the human brain using a model. of transgenic monkey ". In other words, part of the purpose of the study was to help answer a question about evolution: how did we develop our unique type of intelligence, which allowed us to to innovate in a way that other primates can not innovate?

Chinese researchers suspect that the MCPH1 gene is part of the solution. But they do not stop there. One of them, Bing Su, a geneticist from the Kunming Institute of Zoology, told MIT Technology Review that he was already testing other genes involved in the Evolution of the brain:

The one he watches is SRGAP2C, a variant of DNA appeared about two million years ago, just when Australopithecus yielded the African savannah to the first humans. This gene has been dubbed the "switch of humanity" and the "missing genetic link" for its likely role in the emergence of human intelligence. Su says he adds it to the monkeys, but it's too early to say what the results are.

Su has also set his sights on another human gene, FOXP2, that could have helped us master our language skills. By thinking about the possibility of adding this gene to monkeys, said Su Nature in 2016, "I do not think the monkey will suddenly start talking, but will change behavior." He would not break any laws. (In the US, scientists have created human-animal hybrids for the purpose of growing human organs for medical transplants – for example, by injecting human cells into a pig embryo and a sheep embryo – but these studies are not eligible for public funding.)

Su's prediction that her craft would cause behavioral change raises a slippery slope problem: if we find it acceptable to make an animal slightly more human, we could end up normalizing this process and result in the generation of animals that look like more and more to human beings.

Changing the behavior and intelligence of monkeys raises important ethical issues

If you make primates smarter and more human, you will not give them any advantage, especially if you lock them up in a lab. Jacqueline Glover, a bioethicist at the University of Colorado, said, "To humanise them is to hurt. Where would they live and what would they do? Do not create a being who can not have a meaningful life in any context. "

In a 2010 article titled "The Ethics of Using Nonhuman Transgenic Primates to Study What Makes Us Human", Glover and his co-authors wrote that it was unethical to add genes from the human brain to monkeys (like chimpanzees). Su told MIT Tech Review that he agreed that monkeys are similar to humans. After all, chimpanzees and humans share a recent common ancestor and 98% of DNA.

But monkeys are not monkeys. The last time they shared an ancestor with us, it was 25 million years ago, which according to Su, changes the ethical calculation. "Although their genome is close to ours, there are also tens of millions of differences," he said, adding that for a monkey it would be "impossible to look like a monkey" by introducing only a few human genes.

This kind of justification is repugnant to Barbara J. King, author of How animals cry and Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary. In an e-mail, she described Su's experience as an "ethical nightmare" by writing, "More genetically modified monkeys – six – are dead than living, so we immediately see that the procedure is often deadly. With regard to the five survivors, what kind of lives will they have in the future, modified as they are and confined to an experimental laboratory?

Lintao Zhang / Getty Images

King also suggested that a cost-benefit analysis of Su's study would not hurt his favor. "In nature, macaques live in matrilines centered around groups of related women with close social ties. they explore their world with intelligence and curiosity. By what right have we subjected these primates to such grotesque procedures? She wrote. "The costs are terribly high and the benefits for humanity are approaching zero; It is increasingly recognized that animal models simply do not work well to study complex human processes. "

Primates have often been used in studies to understand how different diseases develop and how we can treat them in humans. However, it is important to note that there is a difference between giving a disease to a monkey and giving a monkey a more human intelligence. Obviously, if you inflict an illness on an animal, you hurt him. But you do not change the fundamental nature of what it means to be that animal.

The addition of genes from the human brain to a monkey, however, may fundamentally alter the way the monkey perceives and interacts with reality. So, even if you believe that it is morally acceptable to do experiments on monkeys in the name of better quality of treatment of the disease in humans, there is still a jump from experience to that of Su. After all, the The very principle of this experiment is that monkeys can become more human as a result of it.

Su is right to note that there are "tens of millions of differences" between humans and monkeys. But his study on transgenics is essentially aimed at eliminating some of these differences. After how many differences eliminated a monkey melt into a human being? There is no clear answer to this question.

China is particularly welcoming for primate research

It is hard to imagine a study like Su's being given a green light in the United States, where primate research is increasingly being watched, thanks in part to the work of animal rights advocates. But China is much more open to this kind of research. The country has extensive monkey breeding facilities, of which it exports tens of thousands each year.

STR / AFP / Getty Images

When it comes to studying monkeys, a researcher gets a lot more for his money in China, as reported last year by Sarah Zhang from the Atlantic:

A standard monkey in China costs about $ 1,500, compared to about $ 6,000 in the United States. The daily costs of food and care are also an order of magnitude lower.

In recent years, China has witnessed a miniature explosion of genetic engineering in monkeys. In Kunming, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, scientists have created monkeys designed to show signs of Parkinson's disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, autism, and so on.

Due to the relative ease with which primate research can be conducted, some researchers regularly travel from the United States to China for scientific work on monkeys. As Zhang pointed out, researchers from Emory University have recently collaborated with Chinese scientists working on genetically modified monkeys. And Su's study was done by computer scientist Martin Styner of the University of North Carolina. Styner, who told MIT Tech Review magazine that his involvement was minimal, said he was considering removing his name from the study and that he has come to believe that such research were not "a good direction".

Although the United States does not approve of studies such as those of Su, American universities that collaborate with Chinese scientists in such studies can always be complicit in any moral harm they cause.

---

Sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter. Twice a week, you will have an overview of ideas and solutions to our greatest challenges: improving public health, reducing human and animal suffering, mitigating catastrophic risks and, to put it simply, improving the quality of things.