I’ll take one Human-Pussy hybrid. If you rub their belly do they still purr?
If you genetically engineer them to do so! They can purr, be silent, scream in agony…anything you’d like them to do! Remember, diversity is a strength!
Article title is clickbait. Guy is trying to grow human organs in pigs. So technically it is part pig, part human but not in the way most people think when they hear the term animal human hybrid.
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I for one welcome my new cat human overlords
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Another plus…if they scratch your back, you’re really going to feel it.
True dat! And think about the possibilities…not just cats! Other felines too, if you want something a bit more fierce…or canines for ultimate loyalty! Hyppos! HUMAN-HYPPO-SEX-HYBRIDS. And let’s not delve into what we could do with amphibians…
FAQ for people just jumping in on this topic:
q) "Why is everything about this related to sex???
a) Oh come on, have you ever watched hentai? It was all leading up to this. Do you think that Japanese scientists who grew up watching that stuff care about the organ transplant thingy??? Come on!!
q) “You seem to have plenty of experience with this whole sex with animal hybrids stuff…have you ever done it before?”
a) That’s outside my purview
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It just occurred to me that we could source the human genetic material from Donald Trump and create a race of honest-to-goodness Capitalist Pigs. Just to annoy the millennials, like.
Would that be " Purrview" ?
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Now you’re talking
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What way is that? I think the term is accurate.
The correct term is chimera.
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This is an article intended for popular consumption, however.
I’ll happily admit that I don’t know how it works, so I’ll defer to your expertise on that side of things. However I’m familiar with the difference between something that works in the laboratory and something that has to work reliably “in the field”. Let’s say you actually can grow a new liver for someone in a porcine host. Well: I assume the principal aim is to ensure tissue compatibility, which means you have to take stem cells from the potential recipient and grow a pig around them. A pig takes 6 months to grow to maturity. Is the patient going to be alive after six months? Don’t you have the exact same problem of tissue rejection in the pig? Can it be managed well enough to (a) prevent irreversible damage to the human organ and (b) keep the pig alive? Are there any ‘quality control’ issues? After all’s said and done, would it turn out to be cheaper, easier and more reliable to source from a dead human donor? Can the waiting list for organs not be shortened far more effectively by just making sure people don’t end up on that list in the first place, with preventative interventions?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but they affect the ultimate cost and practicality of the treatment.
I’m not denying that people get horrible life-threatening diseases through no fault of their own. I’m merely pointing that that class of diseases which put the patient on the transplant list are mostly (not always) caused either by something the patient did, or by something the doctor did, or both. The most effective treatment, then, is to stop doing that.
Example: a good fraction of kidney transplants are performed as a result of kidney failure following heart surgery (presumably due to the temporary cessation of blood circulation). Heart surgery is often performed on people who are eating stupid diets and taking a shitload of dangerous pills. And a lot of people eat stupid diets and take pills because doctors tell them to.
What upsets me most is that doctors often vehemently oppose any preventative measures. There was some idiot gibbering recently in the UK press that “people are going to die” if the campaign against statins turns the pill-popping public away from those drugs. The medical profession is still firmly against dietary interventions for Type 2 diabetes. If I were of a tinfoil-hat-wearing persuasion, I’d think they were concerned mainly with keeping plenty of jobs for the boys.
I support this for medical purposes only otherwise it is ethically and meaninglessly dehumanising and demoralising.
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BlockquoteI’ll happily admit that I don’t know how it works, so I’ll defer to your expertise on that side of things. However I’m familiar with the difference between something that works in the laboratory and something that has to work reliably “in the field”.
You are right, it is generally a long way from the bench to the bedside. It may take a decade, it may take 15 or 20 years. It may work out, it may not. But you never know unless you try. This is the whole point of scientific research, maybe about 1% of what is discovered/developed in the lab finds its practical application in medicine, as it entails very lengthy process of quality checks, different levels of clinical trials. But this 1% can make a difference. Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology was first discovered in 2006, only now the clinical trials get approved for certain applications, like for autologous transplantation of retinal pigment epithelium.
Blockquote Don’t you have the exact same problem of tissue rejection in the pig?
You introduce human iPSCs into a pig embryo at a very early stage, before the immune system develops. Therefore, once an adult pig develops, its immune system would perceive these foreign human cells as its own.
Blockquote Is the patient going to be alive after six months?
Yes, this is a very valid concern, as it takes a long time, about 6 months, even to reprogram patient’s somatic cells into iPSCs and pass all QC checks, even before growing a pig. Shinya Yamanaka, the guy who discovered iPSC technology, proposed the following solution: now he creates the bank of iPSCs for all immune types of Japan’s population. In that case, if someone needs urgent transplantation, the iPSCs from the bank immunologically most similar to the the patient can be used. I guess, similar approach can be applied to pigs/organs, have them ready before you need them. Yes, it will not be pure autologous transplantation, but still the risk is much lower than relying on some random donors.
Blockquote Are there any ‘quality control’ issues? After all’s said and done, would it turn out to be cheaper, easier and more reliable to source from a dead human donor?
I think this the potential advantage of this technology that it may allow to standardize the transplantation procedure, also as far as “quality control” is concerned. Dead human donors are absolutely random, and in short demand. As for the costs, medicine is expensive. Only clinical trials for chemical drugs cost about a billion USD.
Blockquote Can the waiting list for organs not be shortened far more effectively by just making sure people don’t end up on that list in the first place, with preventative interventions?
True, prevention and early diagnostics are important, but one does not exclude another, as there will always be people in need of transplantation.
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Blockquote I support this for medical purposes only otherwise it is ethically and meaninglessly dehumanising and demoralising.
I believe this kind of research is under very strict ethical rules and regulations. It is strictly forbidden to direct differentiation of human iPSCs into neuronal lineage and germline lineage within such chimeras.