While we have seen that science has reached greater heights, this news will be a reality check for you as it was for us. Scientists are now planning to build a humanimal which is an animal embryos with human cells. While this was interesting, we can now inform that Japan’s government has signed a request by scientists to grow human pancreas in rats or mice as well.
Earlier this year, the government ban was reversed and this will be the first such type of experiment after this ban. “Finally, we are in a position to start serious studies in this field after 10 years of preparation,” says lead researcher Hiromitsu Nakauchi after the approval was completed.
However, this will not even be the first time that a humanimal has been developed by scientists. Because previously, there have been attempts to develop human cells with pig or sheep embryos. But due to some reasons, those pregnancies were terminated just a few days or weeks later. Therefore, a humanimal was not able to be developed.
Since the Japan government is backing this project, we are most likely to see our first humanimal being developed soon. Once this project develops chimera embryos, it will lead to the birth of real, living, breathing humanimals.
Having said that, this project does not aim on developing catgirls or is it a project to substitute humans with animals. Rather, scientists are developing this to see if it is possible to have transplantable human organs from animals. Since we already slaughter pigs and sheep, they are chosen as the first animals on which this experiment will take place.
If the experiment turns out to be successful, it might be possible to transplant organs of an animal into humans if there is an organ failure in humans. This should come in handy when there is no donor available.