Scientists are creating hybrid animals between humans and monkeys in China

This could be a big and controversial leap as these scientists are trying to transplant human cells into monkey embryos.

According to information posted by Spanish-language news site El País, a team of researchers has produced many human and half-monkey embryos . According to the article, Spanish biologist Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, who now runs a Salk Institute creation lab in California, worked with monkey researchers in China to work on Realize this scary experiment.

The goal of the researchers was to create "animal-to-human chimera animals" that, in this case, added human cells to monkey fetuses.

So what motivated them to perform this experiment? The perspective that this research aims to create is that of organisms that have internal organs made entirely of human cells, including the kidneys or liver. These organisms can be used as an organ source for transplants.

A team of researchers has produced many human and half monkey apes.

The technique of creating these chimera animals includes the introduction of human embryonic stem cells into the embryos of another animal. They hope that the human cells will grow and nurture in parallel with that embryonic development.

Previously, Izpisúa Belmonte had tried to create chimera hybrid between humans and animals by introducing human cells into pig embryos, but ineffective.

Due to the similarity of the genome between monkeys and humans, it is likely that this team's experiment will be successful. In addition, in order to increase the ability to effectively develop human cells, scientists also use gene editing technology to disable the formation of certain types of cells available in the embryos of animals. .

Is it controversial? Certainly and even harshly. In the United States, the National Institutes of Health has said that federal funds will never be used to create human-to-monkeys embryos. In China, however, there are no similar laws, which may be the reason for the controversial studies taking place in the country.

So far, no half-human or half-monkey creature has been born. Instead, these hybrid embryos will be allowed to be kept in the laboratory for about one to two weeks, which is also the time scientists will study them. This is information shared by Estrella Núñez, a biologist and manager at the Catholic University in Murcia, Spain, who also said that her university is helping with the cause. funds for this research.

When asked about the accuracy of the information posted by El País, the Salk Institute did not respond. In addition Núñez replied via email that she would not make any comments until " the results of the study were publicly available ".

Incredulous? Pable Ross, a veterinary researcher at the University of California who also worked with Salk on the creation of a hybrid chimera animal between humans and pigs, said that trying to develop human introspection on species Monkey is nonsense.

" The reason why I always believe that it is unreasonable for us to use primates in this way is that the implanted organs will be very small and require a lot of time to develop," he said. ".

But he also suspected that these scientists were also counting on many basic scientific issues. He also believes that transplanting human cells into the monkey's fetus could be the key to solving " questions about evolutionary distance and breaking the interference barrier between species ."