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It's time for engineering new humans and chimeras. We can do what we want.

Millions of people who have refused to get an experimental mRNA vaccine may soon be forced to consume the gene therapy in their food. Researchers at the University of California were awarded a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation developing technology that infuses experimental mRNA Covid-19 vaccines into spinach, lettuce and other edible plants. The team of nanobiotechnology experts is currently working on successfully delivering DNA containing mRNA BioNTech technology into chloroplasts, the part of the plants that instruct its cells’ DNA to replicate the vaccine material. The researchers are tasked with demonstrating the genetically modified plants can produce...

Human-animal chimeric embryos—organisms created using cells from two or more species—have the potential to change how researchers study disease and generate organs and tissues for human transplants. One day, scientists have proposed, it may be possible for someone with, say, pancreatic cancer to have their stem cells injected into a modified swine embryo lacking its own pancreas so it can grow the human organ for donation. Already, human-animal chimeric embryos (HACEs) have been created using human cells injected into pigs, sheep, mice, rats, and monkeys, although none in the US have been brought to term. In fact, their very existence...

Scientists announced this week that they successfully created the first monkey-pig hybrid, in a controversial research project teeming with ethical issues and concerning questions. Chinese scientists at the State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology in Beijing announced the birth of the first pig-monkey chimeras. The researchers modified monkey cells and laced them with a fluorescent protein that allowed them to trace the cells and the cells they produce. The scientists then obtained embryonic cells from the genetically modified cells and injected those monkey cells into pig embryos days after creating them in the lab. Some 4,000 monkey-pig...

Researchers in the US are creating half-human, half-animal embryos to help save lives, particularly people with a wide range of ailments. The embryos create better animal models to study the occurrence of human diseases and its progression

In the new movie "Splice," a human-animal hybrid terrorizes people. In real life, scientists argue mixing human and animal cells could save lives.Dren, the half-human, half-animal hybrid set to terrorize Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley in the new movie "Splice," is pure science fiction, but politicians across the country aren't taking any chances. In the last month Ohio and Arizona have both passed laws forbidding research of animal human hybrids. Proponents of the laws fear Dren-like creations and object morally to the combining human and animal cells. But scientists say the research could lead to cure for AIDS, immunize people...

"It sounds yucky, but it may be well worth doing if it's going to lead to a cure for something horrible," said Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem cell expert at Britain's National Institute for Medical Research, and a member of the group conducting the study. At a media briefing in London, Lovell-Badge said there were two main types of experiments: altering an animal's genes by adding human DNA or replacing a specific animal sequence with its human counterpart. Several years ago, human genes were added to a mouse to create a model of Down's syndrome for scientists to study how the...

British scientists are among the world leaders in stem cell research - and their latest discoveries could transform medicine forever We have been told for almost a decade that stem cells are the future of medicine: that these tiny clumps of tissue could become a biological "repair kit", able to regenerate or heal almost any part of the body. But amid all the prophecies of patches for damaged hearts, new nerve cells for spinal injuries or stroke victims, and insulin-producing cells for diabetics, few people predicted that it would be British-based scientists who would be leading the way in mapping...

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.