Kids, am I imagining things or are scientists really cooking up SuperPigs? Starting as far back as 1984 (around when my Dad was born!), brave lab warriors have been mashing up animals to create chimeras. Imagine a goat mixed with a sheep! Whaat?!
And guess what the latest stunt is? They've now combined humans and monkeys! (Don't worry, they haven't created a Planet of the Apes situation yet). The mastermind behind these Monkey Business experiments? A dude name Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte. This guy's got nerves of steel!
The coolest part? These science magicians can now take human stem cells and 'bloop' it into a pig embryo—they've done this to over 1,800 pig embryos! And let's not forget the panel of 13 SuperMom pigs who carried these special embryos for up to 28 days.
Now, picture this: five wee embryos extracted with tiny kidneys containing up to 65 percent human cells. Doesn't it make you wish your science projects were this cool?
An epic twist comes when another scientist, wackily named Paul Knoepfler, points out a tricky riddle: if you're growing a new organ in an animal, where's it gonna go?! Pigs don't exactly have spare kidney spaces.
Here's where it gets like a real comic. Researchers used the Crispr tool (as crazy as its name) to zap two genes responsible for pig kidneys. Ta-da! Now there's space for human kidneys to start sprouting.
They then turned some plain old human cells into pluripotent stem cells— cells that can become anything. Like, anything! Want to be a kidney? Easy! A heart? No problem! Cool, huh?
To succeed with this magical procedure, the human stem cells went into the pig embryos. And both human and pig cells enjoyed a special superhero smoothie of nutrients to make sure they stayed alive and kickin'.
Dear Diary, becoming a SuperPig myself might not be in the cards. But just imagine, all this could mean a future world where no one has to wait for a transplant ever again!
Based on the original article "Scientists Just Tried Growing Human Kidneys in Pigs".
