Shades of Planet of the Apes!

Katherine A. Carroll, Executive Director of National Health Federation, has written a piece about animal-human hybrids (chimeras) that are being engineered to fill the need for organs for transplant patients.1  Researchers have been inserting human cells (fetal cells) into early pig and sheep embryos since 2014. “Humanized” mice are being used to study cancer, inflammatory diseases, infectious disease, and the formation of blood cells (hematopoiesis).

Carroll cites research in which human glial cells injected into mouse pups completely “usurped” the native cells.2 The neurons, which do the thinking, were murine; but the glial cells, which strengthen connections between neurons, were human. These humanized mice were much smarter than normal mice.

Carroll points out some ethical questions about developing and then using these new life forms. First, to gain a usable organ for transplant, the chimera would have to be “taken to term”; that is, the being would have developed sufficiently to live on its own. Second, what if chimeras develop human characteristics? At what point would they deserve the same rights and privileges as humans? How could harvesting their organs be justified?

We are already horrified to hear when prisoners in other countries are forced to donate organs3; how much worse would it be to engineer a being for the sole purpose of taking their organs and their lives? Wouldn’t it be better to seek other, more ethical options, such as 3D or 4D organ printing, using a person’s own cells?

“Technology sweeps over us like a tsunami and yet we are making judgments as we go along integrating new research, data, and applications with scarcely time to consider their long-term impact,” Carroll writes.  Should ethics be a bigger player in science and technology? And if so, how and when should it take part?

References

  1. Carroll KA. Alien Species…on the Threshold of a Brave New World. Townsend Letter. May 2018;73-76.
  2. Coghlan A. The smart mouse with the half-human brain. New Scientist. December 1, 2014.
  3. Wilson C. Prisoners in China are still being used as organ donors, says inquiry. June 18, 2019.