"Should it be regulated as human because it has a significant proportion of human cells in it? Or should it be regulated just as an animal? Or something else?" Rice University's Matthews said. Specifically, the critics worry that human cells could become part of the developing brain of such an embryo - and of the brain of the resulting animal. The biggest concern, they said, is that someone could try to take this work further and attempt to make a baby out of an embryo made this way. ![]() But this type of scientific work and the possibilities it opens up raises serious questions for some ethicists. Jeffrey Platt, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan, who is doing related experiments but was not involved in the new research. "This work is an important step that provides very compelling evidence that someday when we understand fully what the process is we could make them develop into a heart or a kidney or lungs," said Dr. Some other scientists NPR spoke with agree the research could be useful. In addition, Belmonte said he hopes this kind of work could lead to new insights into early human development, aging and the underlying causes of cancer and other disease. We are trying to understand how cells from different organisms communicate with one another." "And we are not doing anything like that. "Our goal is not to generate any new organism, any monster," Belmonte said. Such mixed-species embryos are known as chimeras, named for the fire-breathing creature from Greek mythology that is part lion, part goat and part snake. "This knowledge will allow us to go back now and try to re-engineer these pathways that are successful for allowing appropriate development of human cells in these other animals," Belmonte told NPR. ![]() ![]() Shots - Health News Embryo Experiments Reveal Earliest Human Development, But Stir Ethical Debate
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