A team led by researchers at the nonprofit research center Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., have created the first successful human-animal hybrid, according to National Geographic.
Here are five things to know:
1. An international team of researchers created a human-pig hybrid in a lab, proving that human cells can be introduced into — and even grow inside — a non-human host animal.
2. To create the hybrid animal, the researchers injected a pig embryo with human cells early in its development, according to study findings published in Cell. The researchers then placed the embryos into adult pigs, which carried them for three to four weeks before they were removed and analyzed.
3. The researchers said the hybrid embryos could help address the shortage of donor organs by allowing scientists to create custom organs in a lab. A person is added to the national waitlist for organ transplants every 10 minutes, and each day, 22 people on that list die, according to National Geographic.
4. However, this study is only a first step.
Ke Cheng, PhD, a stem cell expert who was not involved with the study, said humans would likely reject organs grown with hybrid embryos since they contain so much pig tissue. He said the next step is to figure out how to increase the number of human cells these embryos could tolerate. Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, PhD, co-author on the study and a professor in the Salk Institute's Gene Expression Laboratory, agreed it could take years to create functioning human organs with this process.
5. The Salk Institute relied on private donors for this project as science experiments creating human-animal hybrids are ineligible for public funding in the U.S., according to National Geographic.
To read the National Geographic article, click here.