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Home Industry News World’s first human-pig chimaera embryos created

World’s first human-pig chimaera embryos created

27th January 2017

The world's first embryos containing cells from humans and pigs have been grown by a team from the Salk Institute.

Published in the medical journal Cell, the research built upon an earlier experiment to create a rat/mouse chimaera by introducing rat cells into mouse embryos and letting them mature, resulting in a mouse with pancreatic tissue formed from rat cells.

Using CRISPR genome editing tools, human stem cells were injected into pig embryos, resulting in human/pig chimaera embryos that were implanted in sows and allowed to develop for between three and four weeks.

Now that it has been established that it is possible to sustainably grow human tissue in pig embryos, the researchers will work to improve the efficiency of the technique to make it possible to guide the human cells into forming a particular organ in pigs.

Lead investigator Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies' Gene Expression Laboratory, said: "The ultimate goal is to grow functional and transplantable tissue or organs, but we are far away from that. This is an important first step."

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