FIRST HUMAN-PIG EMBRYO GROWN IN LABORATORY.

For the first time, biologists have succeeded in growing human stem cells in pig embryos, shifting from science fiction to the realm of the possible the idea of developing human organs in animals for later transplant. The approach involves generating stem cells from a patient's skin, growing the desired new organ in a large animal like a pig, and then harvesting it for transplant into the patient's body. Since the organ would be made of a patient's own cells, there would be little risk of immune rejection. The human-organ growing pigs would be examples of chimeras, animals composed of two different genomes. They would be generated by implanting human stem cells into an early pig embryo, resulting in an animal composed of mixed pig and human cells. A team of biologists, led by Jun Wu and Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte at the Salk Institute, US, has shown that human stem cells can contribute to forming the tissues of a pig, despite the ninety million years of evolution between the two species. Another group, headed by Tomoyuki Yamaguchi and Hideyuki Sato of the University of Tokyo, and Hiromitsu Nakauchi of Stanford, has reversed diabetes in mice by inserting pancreas glands composed of mouse cells that were grown in a rat. 
The Salk team's report was published in journal 'Cell', and the Stanford-Tokyo team's in journal 'Nature'. The two reports together establish the feasibility of trying to grow replacement human organs in animals, though such a goal is still far off. Many technical and ethical barriers have yet to be overcome, but the research is advancing alongside the acute need for organs. Creating chimeras, especially those with human cells, may prove controversial, given the possibility that test animals could be humanised in undesirable ways. Both Izpisua Belmonte and Nakauchi said there was a long way top go before human organs could successfully be grown in animals like pigs. Chimeras will be more immediately useful in studying human embryogenesis, testing drugs and following the progress of disease.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

VIEWS OF MANU AND KAUTILYA ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.

The state performed its duty of protection of society and the individual through coercive enforcement of the standards of justice based on the concept of ' Dharma '. From the Vedic period onward, the perennial attitude of Indian culture had been justice and righteousness. Justice, in the Indian context, was a human expression of a wider universal principle of nature and if men were entirely true to nature, their actions would be spontaneously just. Men experienced Justice, in the sense of a distributive equity, as moral justice, social justice, and legal justice. Each of these forms of justice was viewed as a particularisation of the general principle of the universe seen as a total organism. Impartial administration of justice was always regarded as one of the main duties of the King and he was considered to be the fountain of justice. The ethical code of society and its cultural standards were inter-related. The cultural maturity and social amicability and even their det...
Read more

ARCHAEOLOGISTS DISCOVER TOMBS IN EGYPT DATING BACK 2,000 YEARS.

Egypt's antiquities ministry said on 14th August, 2017 (Tuesday) that archaeologists have discovered three tombs dating more than 2,000 years, from the Ptolemaic Period. The discovery was made in the Nile valley province of Minya south of Cairo, in an area known as al-kamin al-Sahrawi. The unearthed sarcophagi and clay fragments suggest that the area was a large necropolis from sometime between the 27th Dynasty and the Greco-Roman period. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 
Read more

ANCIENT INDIA'S LINKS TO TODAY.

You may not have heard of Shu-ilishu but he is a man of great significance. He reaches out to us from almost 4,300 years ago, through a small Akkadian cylinder seal now housed at the Louvre Museum in Paris. On the seal, you will find an image of him talking to two men. The inscription describes Shu-ilishu as the interpreter of the Meluhhan language. 'Meluha' was, in all probability, the term used by ancient Mesopotamians for the Indus Valley region, and the presence of an oficial 'interpreter' there indicates just how important the steady flow of good from the Indian sub-continent was.  Precious and vibrant lapis lazuli stones, carnelian beads, wood and even dogs would go across via old trade routes and ports like Lothal (in modern-day Gujarat) to Akkad, capital of the Akkadian Empire (03rd millennium BCE) and now in modern-day Iraq. There are also references to a settlement of Meluhhans in the city of Guabba in Sumer, in Mesopotamia.  The story of Shi-ilishu and ...
Read more