In article <smith.679683350 at plasma> smith at plasma.harvard.edu (Steven Smith) writes:
>>Dont you think that such an experiment would be so completely unethical
>(even in a testtube) that no one would ever try it, let alone publish
>it? I wouldnt hold my breath on this one EVER being done, and would
>be very shocked to hear that it had.
>>Steve Smith
>Harvard Genome Lab
As I understand, one can fuse a mouse to a human cell. Most of the human
chromosomes are lost, leaving a few human chromosomes and mostly mouse. The
technique it was useful for mapping genes (this was a few years ago - it may be
out of date now). Now consider that one could put this cell's nucleus into a
mouse egg or perhaps fuse it with other cells of a mouse embryo and get (maybe)
a mouse that was partially human. This is much easier than the other
experiment, and perhaps one could get the mouse to depend on large portions of
human sequence. I think this was done to nude mice - giving them a human
immune system.
How are we going to deal with this ethically?? Do they have rights?
Tom Schneider
National Cancer Institute
Laboratory of Mathematical Biology
Frederick, Maryland 21702-1201
toms at ncifcrf.gov
