Finally letting scientists get real work done. I welcome the future of genetically/cybernetically enhanced humans. We should take control of our own evolution IMO.
That’s disgusting.
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Finally, real science! Now we can breed that army of mutant pigmen.
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And completely pointless.
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Grow human liver in pig for autologous transplantation. How pointless is it?
So this is okay but smoking some weed isn’t. Eerrrrrr okay.
The vast majority of cases of chronic liver disease are either preventable, self-inflicted, or both. Same with pancreatic failure (which appears to be their first target). I’m sure it’s exciting to perform a successful organ transplant, but in the grand scheme of things it’s an enormous waste of medical resources, and avoids addressing the underlying causes of such problems.
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We need animal-human hybrids to replace our aging population.
On a more serious note, I’ve watched a ton of hentai and I saw this coming. Step aside sex dolls, you’ll never have a chance against genetically enhanced human-cat Waifus.
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A woman with soft silky fur who purrs? Yes please! I could do without the prickly tongue though.
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Can we look forward to human-cat-cow hybrids walking the streets of Taipei?
Cannot deny the fact that there are millions of people in waiting lists for organ transplantation from human donors. I don’t see this research as enormous waste of resources, how expensive can it be to breed pigs?
I know. My point is that 90% of those cases could have been prevented, but they were not because doctors be like, yeah, we got a transplant for that.
A “diabetes expert” acquaintance of my sister’s was recently overheard to remark, upon giving his kids their regular top-up of Coke, “not a problem, we’ve got good treatments for diabetes these days”. The statement isn’t even true - there is no medical intervention that “cures” T2D, principally because T2D isn’t a disease as such - but that sort of attitude is quite common in the medical profession, IMO. Never use the adjustment screw if you can swing a big f’ing sledgehammer at the problem.
Breeding pigs is easy. They do it all by themselves. Breeding pigs with transplantable human organs is very hard indeed. And very, very expensive. It might even turn out to be impossible (or less practical than sourcing human organs).
Money spent on this sort of self-indulgent “science” could be more productively spent on genuine diseases. Does an alky or a fat bastard who buggered up his liver really deserve a second chance at public expense, while the guy who just got run over by a bus has to wait in the queue for six hours to have his legs pinned back together?
Medicine is more complicated than “let’s do this because we can”. Resources are always finite, and ticklish tradeoffs have to be made.
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As for ethics, there are two big no nos: 1) Cannot differentiate human stem cells in chimeras into nerve tissue, 2) Cannot differentiate into her germ tissue. So, no pigs with human brains, no pigs carrying human babies.
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“I know. My point is that 90% of those cases could have been prevented, but they were not because doctors be like, yeah, we got a transplant for that.”
Life is more complicated than that… You can get cancer out of nothing, even if you follow completely healthy life style. Steve Jobs was not an alco… Or another example: hepatitis C virus was not detectable until relatively recently. Someone very dear to me got it from blood transfusion in 90s, now got late liver cirrhosis. Life style is important, I agree. More important is early diagnostics! But it does not mean you should not do very promising research aimed to treat terminal diseases.
“Breeding pigs is easy. They do it all by themselves. Breeding pigs with transplantable human organs is very hard indeed. And very, very expensive. It might even turn out to be impossible (or less practical than sourcing human organs).”
Not really. This is not a big adron collider. No more expensive than any other average molecular cell biology research. The technology is there. By the way, I am an expert in stem cells, I understand how it works )
ask that of China.
They just lost 40% of their pig herds to the latest virus.
Takes 4 years, under perfect conditions, to get their numbers back, which they won’t, because they can’t get rid of virus yet
I don’t see what the big deal is here.
Would you want your pristine genome sullied by icky human genes?
Pretty sure it wouldn’t take.