In a move that is undoubtedly going to raise all sorts of ethical and scientific questions, scientists have now successfully grown human-monkey chimeric embryos for up to 20 days. The international team of scientists was led by gene expression expert Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte from the Salk Institute in California, according to RT.
Along with his team, he “implanted human stem cells into primate embryos which then grew for up to up to 20 days.”
While the experiment toes many ethical lines, the potential benefits of helping humans understand evolution and biology seem to have outweighed the negatives – for the time being, at least.
Belmonte said: “As we are unable to conduct certain types of experiments in humans, it is essential that we have better models to more accurately study and understand human biology and disease. An important goal of experimental biology is the development of model systems that allow for the study of human diseases under in vivo conditions.”
