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HONG KONG - SCIENTISTS in Singapore have developed a strategy to 'clean up' embryonic stem cells, which researchers hope can one day be used to replace damaged tissues and for other tailor-made personal treatments. Embryonic stem cells are master cells that can grow, or 'differentiate", into any type of cell or tissue, and are subsequently transplanted into the body. But some studies have shown that residual stem cells that fail to differentiate can turn cancerous later on. In the journal Stem Cells, scientists in Singapore said they generated antibodies that successfully killed off these residual stem cells in mice. 'Although...

Fertility expert and television scientist Lord Robert Winston has accused senior members of the Catholic church of lying over the controversial embryo research bill after an Easter weekend which has seen it condemned from pulpits up and down Britain. A coalition of charities and support groups representing scientists, doctors and patients suffering from a wide range of serious conditions has written to every MP urging them to back the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which will allow the creation of part-human, part-animal embryos for medical research. At the weekend Scottish Cardinal Keith O'Brien said the bill would allow "grotesque procedures"...

October 23, 2007, 4:00 a.m. Of Cybrids, Hybrids, & ChimerasLearning from the U.K. battle over human-animal hybrids. By Father Thomas Berg In September, Britain’s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) approved the concept of creating hybrid embryos by merging human cells with animal eggs for research purposes. Essentially a form of cloning, the procedure requires scientists to fuse a normal human body cell with a non-human animal egg — of a cow or a rabbit for instance — stripped of its own nucleus. Once fused, factors remaining in the non-human egg would initiate processes by which an embryonic organism...

A radical Government re-think on the law governing hybrid embryos will allow scientists to carry out virtually any work they like - if it is approved by regulators. The move opens the door to experiments involving every known kind of human-animal hybrid. These could include both "cytoplasmic" embryos, which are 99.9% human, and "true hybrids" carrying both human and animal genes. In addition "chimeras" made of a mosaic-like mix of cells from different species, and "human transgenic embryos" - human embryos modified with animal DNA - will also be allowed under licence. Provision has also been made for the regulation...

Britain's step towards the creation of human-animal hybrids has been condemned by the Vatican as a "monstrous act against human dignity". Days after the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority agreed in principle to license experiments for research, the Vatican's Bishop Elio Sgreccia accused the quango of crumbling "when confronted by requests from a group of scientists", who, he said, were "absolutely against morality". Two teams of scientists hope to be able to create stem cells from their work that could unlock the secrets of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The so-called chimeras will be 99 per cent human and one per...

(Excerpt) Plans to allow British scientists to create human-animal embryos are expected to be approved tomorrow by the government's fertility regulator. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority published its long-awaited public consultation on the controversial research yesterday, revealing that a majority of people were "at ease" with scientists creating the hybrid embryos. Researchers want to create hybrid embryos by merging human cells with animal eggs, in the hope they will be able to extract valuable embryonic stem cells from them. The cells form the basic building blocks of the body and are expected to pave the way for revolutionary therapies...

“The idea that one can move seamlessly from animal-human hybrids, created by cell nuclear transfer, to pure hybrids created by mixing human sperm and an animal egg is logically flawed. The fact that there has been no specific consultation about pure hybrids makes the committee’s recommendations in this regard particularly unhelpful.”

The Roman Catholic Church has called for women to be allowed to give birth to human-animal hybrids created in the laboratory. Embryos injected with animal cells, or chimeras, should be treated as human beings where they have a preponderance of human genes, the bishops say in a sumbission to a Government committee. And there should be no ban on implanting such hybrid embryos in the womb of the woman who supplied the original egg, they say in their submission on the Draft Tissue and Embryos Bill. “Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should...

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- As the brave new world of bizarre scientific research expands further, pro-life advocates are increasingly forced to focus on the human rights of unborn children in different and unique ways. Catholic bishops in England now have the unenviable task of determining what rights human-animal hybrids should have. The British government has proposed legislation the parliament will debate later this year that will allow scientists to create human-animal hybrids. The bill mandates that the created entity, an unborn child who is 99.9 percent human and less than one percent animal, be destroyed within two weeks and not...

LONDON, June 26, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In April, the British government tabled draft legislation that proposes to allow experiments to create human/animal hybrids. Now the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have responded by saying that any embryos created by combining human and animal DNA are human beings with full human rights, including the right to natural birth. The bishops have made a submission to the parliamentary committee examining the proposed legislation and have said that the genetic mothers of these “chimeras” should be able to raise them. There are many ways of creating embryos derived from a combination of...

But the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, in a submission to the Parliamentary joint committee scrutinising the draft legislation, said that the genetic mothers of “chimeras” should be able to raise them as their own children if they wished. The bishops said that they did not see why these “interspecies” embryos should be treated any differently than others. The wide-ranging draft Human Tissue and Embryo Bill, which aims to overhaul the laws on fertility treatment, will include

Hybrid embryos get go-ahead David Batty Thursday May 17, 2007 Guardian Unlimited The government has overturned its proposed ban on the creation of human-animal embryos and now wants to allow them to be used to develop new treatments for incurable diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. The proposal, in a new draft fertility bill published today, would allow scientists to create three different types of hybrid embryos.

UK scientists, who want to mix human and animal cells in order to find cures for degenerative diseases, have had permission for their research delayed so that the ethical issues can be subject to public consultation (Guardian Unlimited). Scientists from Kings College, London, have applied for a licence for hybrid stem cell work on motor neurone disease. A second team from Newcastle University have applied to research how different tissues grow in the body. But after consideration of whether the two research requests came under its remit, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) recently decided that there are currently...

California supporters of stem cell research are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Yesterday, the California Court of Appeal in San Francisco rejected a lawsuit that has been delaying full operations at the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Although the case could still make its way to the state supreme court, CIRM proponents are confident the institute has overcome is last major legal hurdle. The creation of CIRM was approved by voters in November 2004 as a way to get around federally imposed limits on research with human embryonic stem (ES) cells (ScienceNOW, 6 October...

LONDON, February 27, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The British government’s plans to ban the creation of human/animal hybrid embryos are over after a group of 45 scientists, ethicists and politicians published an open letter in January saying that a ban would hold back the advancement of British science.   The Times reports that the government is now dropping plans to ban the experiments and will instead offer funding for a public debate before new legislation is drafted.   The open letter, published in the Times in response to the government’s December 2006 announcement that it planned to draft legislation to ban...

English tabloids are nothing if not colorful, but recently they’ve outdone themselves, splashing images of bizarre genetic mixtures of humans with rabbits and cows across their front pages, derisively dubbed “Franken-bunnies” and “moo-tants” by the headline writers of Fleet Street. The frenzy was triggered by England’s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, which is pondering the legality of “chimeras,” meaning organisms that carry both human and animal genes. Such creatures may seem like science fiction, but in less spectacular form they’re already common, from cows injected with human stem cells in order to produce a human protein in their milk, which...

In the contest for oddest pronouncement in a State of the Union address, high marks should go to President Bush’s call last January for a national ban on “creating human-animal hybrids.� Fortunately, the modern biotech laboratory does not yet resemble H.G. Wells’s island of Dr. Moreau, that fictional place where an exiled scientist blends man and beast by vivisection. Not even our most skillful, least scrupulous genetic engineers can manufacture humanzees to provide spare parts or serve as semi-skilled labor. We are not yet so talented or so depraved. Yet the President’s call to action did not come out of...

A child's need for a father will no longer be a consideration when a woman seeks fertility treatment, ministers will say this week. The move – which comes despite widespread public opposition and which will give single women and lesbians the right to treatment – forms part of a shake-up of Britain's embryology laws. One of the key proposals would allow research on test-tube embryos that were part-human, part-animal — referred to as "chimeras". The changes, which ministers say have "fundamental social, legal and ethical aspects", are set out in a Department of Health "command paper" seen by The Sunday...

Creating 'human-animals' for research Ethics report endorses mingling human cells with lesser beings Sunday, May 1, 2005 Posted: 0316 GMT (1116 HKT) RENO, Nevada (AP) -- On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs. The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can't wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus' brain about two...

Outlawing human/animal chimeras will hurt serious research Last year, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan) introduced the Human Chimera Prohibition Act. The act is cosponsored by his fellow conservatives Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev), Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla) and Sen. Richard Santorum (R-Penn). The aim of the act is to ban various types of research in which human cells and genetic material are mixed with animal cells and genes. Why? Because the act claims, "respect for human dignity and the integrity of the human species may be threatened by chimeras." Violations of the Act would be punishable by fines of $1 million or...

Scientists have been warned that their latest experiments may accidently produce monkeys with brains more human than animal. In cutting-edge experiments, scientists have injected human brain cells into monkey fetuses to study the effects. Critics argue that if these fetuses are allowed to develop into self-aware subjects, science will be thrown into an ethical nightmare. An eminent committee of American scientists will call for restrictions into the research, saying the outcome of such studies cannot be predicted and may in fact produce subjects with a 'super-animal' intelligence. The high-powered committee of animal behaviourists, lawyers, philosophers, bio-ethicists and neuro-scientists was established...

I love chimeras. I've seen just about every werewolf, Dracula and mermaid movie ever made, I have a Medusa magnet on my refrigerator, and the Sphinx of Greek mythology is a role model for her lethal brand of mystery. So when chimeras reared up in science news, I grabbed my disintegrating copy of Edith Hamilton's "Mythology" to refresh my memory on the Chimera, the she-monster with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail: "A fearful creature, great and swift of foot and strong/Whose breath was flame unquenchable." Bellerophon, "a bold and beautiful young man" on flying Pegasus,...

If you had just created a mouse with human brain cells, one thing you wouldn't want to hear the little guy say is, "Hi there, I'm Mickey." Even worse, of course, would be something like, "Get me out of this &%#!! body!" It's been several millennia since Greek mythology dreamed up the chimera, a creature with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent. Research on the chimera front was pretty quiet for 2,500 years. But then in 1984 scientists announced that they had merged embryonic goat cells with embryonic sheep cells,...

Fri, Apr. 29, 2005BusinessweekGenetic mingling mixes human, animal cells The Associated Press /RENO, Nev. By PAUL ELIAS AP Biotechnology Writer   RENO, Nev. - On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs.

RENO, Nev. - On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs. The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can't wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus' brain about two months ago. "It's mice on a large scale," Chamberlain says with a shrug. As strange as his work may sound, it falls firmly...

RENO, Nev. - On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over . The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can't wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus' brain about two months ago. "It's mice on a large scale," Chamberlain says with a shrug. As strange as his work may sound, it falls firmly within the new ethics guidelines the influential National Academies issued this past week for stem cell research. In...

<p>RENO, Nev. - On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs.</p> <p>The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can't wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus' brain about two months ago.</p>

TJ Archive > Volume 16 Issue 1 > Walking whales, nested hierarchies, and chimeras: do they exist? First published:TJ 16(1):111 - 119April 2002 Browse this issue Subscribe to TJ Walking whales, nested hierarchies, and chimeras: do they exist? by John WoodmorappeSummary Recent claims about ‘terrestrial’ whales are examined and refuted. The trends cited in whale evolution are rather superficial in nature, and little different from those that become apparent by lining up wheeled vehicles within a cladogram. A close examination of whale evolution in general, and whale-ear evolution in particular, demonstrates that most anatomical traits do not change in a consistent...

Need a liver? Raise a sheep - Organ growing in animals raises ethical concerns By Robert Bazell Correspondent Updated: 7:27 p.m. ET April 25, 2005RENO, Nev. - In ancient mythology, chimeras were part animal, part human — imaginary creatures that took many forms. Now scientists are actually creating them. The new creations may look like sheep, but they are part human. "They're sheep still," says Dr. Esmail Zanjani with the University of Nevada. "But they have significant amounts of human cells in their different organs."

xcept for the three million human brain cells injected into his cranium, XO47 is just an average green vervet monkey. He weighs about 12 pounds and measures 34 inches from the tip of his tail to the sutured incision on the top of his head. His fur is a melange of black, yellow and olive, with white underparts and a coal-black face. Until his operation, two days before I met him, he was skittering about an open-air enclosure on the grounds of a biomedical facility on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts. Afterward, he was caged in a hut shared...

What happens when you cross a human and a mouse? Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke but, in fact, it's a serious experiment recently carried out by a team headed by a distinguished molecular biologist, Irving Weissman, at Stanford University. Scientists injected human brain cells into mouse foetuses, creating a strain of mice that were approximately 1% human. Weissman is considering a follow-up that would produce mice whose brains are 100% human. What if the mice escaped the lab and began to proliferate? What might be the ecological consequences of mice who think like human beings, let loose...

Mad Science: Stanford to Create Rat with Human Brain 03/10/2005 Those who thought stem cell research was about helping people afflicted with disease may become alarmed over Stanford’s latest experiment, reported by the UK News Telegraph: the creation of a lab rat with all human brain cells. The article quotes Wesley Smith of Centre for Bioethics and Culture warning, “biotechnology is becoming dangerously close to raging out of control,” and writing, “Scientists are engaging in increasingly macabre experiments that threaten to mutate nature and the human condition.” Actor Michael J. Fox uses a mouse puppet to encourage popular support for...

It will look like any ordinary mouse, but for America's scientists a tiny animal threatens to ignite a profound ethical dilemma.In one of the most controversial scientific projects ever conceived, a group of university researchers in California's Silicon Valley is preparing to create a mouse whose brain will be composed entirely of human cells. Researchers at Stanford University have already succeeded in breeding mice with brains that are one per cent human cells. In the next stage they plan to use stem cells from aborted foetuses to create an animal whose brain cells are 100 per cent human. Prof Irving...

Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras-a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal. Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells. In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies. And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later...

Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal. Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells. In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies. And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later...

Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal. Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells. In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies. And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later...

Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras—a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal. Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells. In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies. And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later...

In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins. advertisement In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human. In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls. These are not outcasts from "The Island of Dr. Moreau," the 1896 novel by H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists, stretching the boundaries of stem cell research.

In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins. In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human. In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls. These are not outcasts from "The Island of Dr. Moreau," the 1896 novel by H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists, stretching the boundaries of stem cell research.

The head of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations says crossing humans with animals is a path science should not travel. However, a number of these human-animal hybrids, known as chimeras, have already been created. In biological research, chimeras can be artificially produced by mixing cells from two different organisms, often of different species. For instance, in 1984 a chimeric "geep" was produced by combining embryos from a goat and a sheep. And in another case, a chicken with a quail's brain was created by grafting portions of a quail embryo into a chicken embryo (Wikipedia.com). But this investigative research...

Scientists Debate Blending Of Human, Animal Forms By Rick Weiss In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins. In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human. In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls. These are not outcasts from "The Island of Dr. Moreau," the 1896 novel by H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists, stretching the boundaries of stem cell research. Biologists call these hybrid animals chimeras, after...

WASHINGTON In Minnesota, pigs are being born with human blood in their veins. In Nevada, there are sheep whose livers and hearts are largely human. In California, mice peer from their cages with human brain cells firing inside their skulls. These are not outcasts from The Island of Dr. Moreau, the 1896 novel by H.G. Wells in which a rogue doctor develops creatures that are part animal and part human. They are real creations of real scientists. Biologists call these hybrids chimeras, after the mythical Greek creature with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a serpent’s tail. They are...

Research is moving forward to create cloned children out of left-over body parts from aborted babies and 'spare' IVF embryos according to a recent article from the National Post. To those who have been following the reproductive technologies, this is not news. Chimeras, human-animal hybrids, have been created in the lab for years. Human DNA has been injected into cow and monkey ova and allowed to grow into embryos before being destroyed. Ova have been harvested from the ovaries of aborted girls and artificially brought to maturity and inseminated. Some countries outlaw this, others permit it as part of what...