Scientists in the United States are trying to grow human organs inside pigs. They have injected human stem cells into pig embryos to produce human-pig embryos known as chimeras, BBC reported. The embryos are part of research aimed at overcoming the worldwide shortage of transplant organs.
The team from University of California, Davis says they should look and behave like normal pigs, except that one organ will be composed of human cells.
The human-pig chimeric embryos are being allowed to develop in the sows for 28 days before the pregnancies are terminated and the tissue removed for analysis.
Creating the chimeric embryos takes two stages. First, a technique known as CRISPR gene editing is used to remove DNA from a newly fertilized pig embryo that would enable the resulting fetus to grow a pancreas.Then, human induced pluripotent stem cells are injected into the embryo.
