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There could be chimeras in the U.S.
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Half-humans and half-animals may appear in America in the near future – the US Department of Health and Human Services is seriously planning to lift the ban on conducting such experiments, which came into force in September last year. Lifting the moratorium will allow scientists to experiment with human stem cells and animal embryos.
In the US, the National Institutes of Health are responsible for medical developments, they were the ones who initiated the abandonment of the moratorium, and the US government is considering this proposal. Most likely, the US will allow the cultivation of so-called chimeras - creatures whose bodies contain genetically different cells, but some restrictions may still remain. It is assumed that research with animal embryos and human stem cells will only take place at a certain stage of development, in addition, experiments that may result in the appearance of animals capable of procreation remain prohibited.
To control research centers, the US government intends to create a special committee.
Before the 2015 ban can be changed, the NIH proposal must be publicly commented on for 30 days, so it's not worth drawing any conclusions before the fall.
It is worth noting that research on introducing human cells into the body of animals has been going on for quite a long time, the most striking example being the cultivation of malignant tumors in the body of rodents, the purpose of which is to study and develop new methods of treating oncological diseases.
The emergence of chimeras could give a new lease of life to medicine; such organisms could be used to test new drugs or to transplant organs to those in need.
Scientists, by the way, have long been interested in the possibility of creating chimeras, since such organisms could be useful in a wide variety of studies and, despite the existing ban, specialists from different countries are conducting research in this area; for example, in the US alone, in 2015, about 20 animal embryos with human cells (sheep, pigs) were created.
The benefits to science and medicine from creating chimeric organisms are obvious, but there is an ethical issue, which, in principle, is why it was necessary to introduce a moratorium on conducting such experiments; however, the ban only affected research funded by the US government; experiments funded by private sponsors were not prohibited by law.
Like any other proposal, the abandonment of the moratorium on experiments with human cells and animals has caused a heated debate and the first critical remarks have already appeared on this matter. Some experts have suggested that the appearance of pigs with human brains will sooner or later lead to the fact that half-animals, half-humans will start asking questions and wondering why experiments are being conducted on them, because they are almost human. Also, the creation of a human body with the brains of any animal will allow us to say that such an organism is not a human and can be used as a donor for organ transplants, without thinking about morality.
But according to one of the employees of the New York Medical College, all the assumptions can be considered extreme, but just 15 years ago, the creation of a chimeric organism was also considered impossible.
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