In ancient city of Greek, Lycia, there were strange sounds from mountain
making people get fear.This mountain was called ‘Chimera’ which had been named
after the monster living on top of the mountain.
Chimera had weird looking with lion’s head, goat’s body and tail of poisonous snake.
Sometimes Chimera got down the mountain and hurt citizens or destroyed forests.
It was unwelcomed visit to human. What is the meaning of Chimera in modern days?
The meaning of Chimera doesn’t define the creatures which have head and body
from different species. It means the transplantation after gene insertion
between two different organism. In 2016, NIH paid attention to studies on organ
transplantation called human-pig Chimera using pig’s embryo.
NIH approved the official supports from US government.
Just only a year ago, NIH had announced moratorium on the
human-pig Chimera study. Because publics got fear about the emergence of
intelligent pigs having human’s brain. Then Why? NIH reversed moratorium only
a year after? The reason why the human-pig Chimera study has been resumed is
short-supply of organs globally. Human-pig Chimera is being seen as a solution
to fix this problem in medical community.
The number of organ-donators is
completely lower when it is compared to the number of waiting lists.
Practically, in US, 22 people die every day because they
can’t get a organ transplantation surgery. Pig’s ‘physiology’ and ‘organs’ are
as similar as human’s.
But once the pig’s organs are transplanted directly to human body, recipient is
possible to be infected by fatal animal virus. How we can transplant
pig’s organ without destroying new one?
The modern bioengineering might find
solution to eliminate animal virus with CRISPR Cas 9 gene editing
scissors. It is an artificial enzymes and a hybrid of RNA and DNA. The RNA of
CRISPR cas 9 gene editing scissors find disease-causing DNA sequence then
it’s DNA cut off the target sequence. At the same time, it didn’t seem easy to
break through non-target eliminating phenomenon and use in real life right away.
Meanwhile, on this April, researchers figured out increasing accuracy of gene editing scissors over 1million times
and contribute this on nature communications. They decrease the
probability of failure by replacing the
part of guide RNA to bridged nucleic
acid. Ready to start in earnest when retroviruses of pig is eliminated
which destroy new organ. First, extract DNA from a month old embryo of pig
making target organs. Next is making the induced pluripotent stem cell by using
recipient’s skin cell cause’ it can targets particular organ.
Then insert recipient’s reprogrammed pluripotent stem cell into pig’s embryo.
Once the pig’s embryo is implanted in surrogate pig’s womb, human-pig Chimera is
ready to birth. This pig let targeted organ grow at her muscle and organs.
Lastly, transplant organ to recipient. In August 2017, an young man nearly losing
his sight was transplanted pig’s cornea and regained his sight thanks to
approval of human-pig Chimera surgery in China in 2015.
The time that other types of organs using CRISPR would be moved up earlier
than people expect. Because of bioethical reasons, It was not easy to allow using
human’s embryo while researchers were studying. As the time passed, Science has
been free from ethical issue than before.
Are the technologies using for human-pig Chimera study perfect?
 
