(Photo : Photo: Screenshot from Instagram)
Genetic chimerism, also known as a chimera, is a single organism made up of cells with several genotypes. In species, this refers to an organism originating from two or more zygotes. It might include blood cells of various blood types, minor differences in structure (phenotype), and even the possession of both female and male sex organs if the zygotes were of different sexes.
Ethical Discussion
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Many scientists have expressed reservations about the procedure, claiming that although the embryos, in this case, were killed after 20 days, others might attempt to continue the research.
They re asking for a general discussion on the consequences of making chimeras that are part human and part nonhuman.
Human, Monkey Chimera Embryo Sparks Ethical Debate About Stem Cell Research
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Human cells grown in monkey embryos raises ethics debate
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BBC News
By Helen Briggs
image captionHuman cells were grown in an early monkey embryo
Monkey embryos containing human cells have been made in a laboratory, a study has confirmed.
The research, by a US-Chinese team, has sparked fresh debate into the ethics of such experiments.
The scientists injected human stem cells - cells that have the ability to develop into many different body tissues - into macaque embryos.
The developing embryos were studied for up to 20 days.
Other so-called mixed-species embryos, or chimeras, have been produced in the past, with human cells implanted into sheep and pig embryos.
The scientists were led by Prof Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte of the Salk Institute in the US, who, in 2017, helped make the first human-pig hybrid.