WEBVTT - Human-animal Hybrids 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.560 Forward Thinking pay and welcome to Forward Thinking the podcast 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.279 that looks at the feature says, as he strong listen Bud, 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:21.040 he's got radioactive blood. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Bocaton, 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.639 and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going to be 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:29.120 tackling another listener request topic. It's a kind of creepy one. 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.720 I almost wish it was Halloween season to do this. Yeah, 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:34.800 it's actually not that creepy as it turns out, which 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:37.080 is kind of the point of this entire show. Basically, 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:41.000 you can stop listening spoilers. If you were expecting creepy, 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.240 We're largely going to be dismantling some of it is 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:48.320 totally creepy. Okay, read, let's let's read these listeners right well, Actually, 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.520 more than one listener has, in in different kind of ways, 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:55.600 asked us to cover this topic. And the first one 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.160 is from our listener, Amy, who actually wrote us a 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:02.040 really long, super interesting email full of excellent ideas. Eventually, 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.080 I want to get to all of Amy's ideas. But 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.960 the part of her email that's relevant was she asked us. 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:11.800 Have you ever done human animal hybridization? If they could 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.640 grow an ear on a mouse, poor mouse? She says parenthetically, 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:19.000 can they give humans the nasal capabilities of a dog? 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:23.320 What about the muscle strength of a gorilla? M O? 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:27.960 And it's worth asking, and we will we will attempt 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.040 to answer some questions in this, but we have another listener. 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.880 Uh yeah. Lee wrote in on Facebook and said, Hi, there, 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:36.880 I had an idea for an episode. I'm not sure 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.319 if you've covered genetic hybrids or not, but all the 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.440 superhero episodes got me thinking of this. Since I grew 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:44.800 up before why it was really a popular genre. I've 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:46.800 been going back and reading some of those books now, 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.600 including Maximum Ride, which has characters that are genetic hybrids, 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:53.480 humans spliced with a bird or a wolf. I know 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.760 they have created such genetic hybrids with some food and plants. 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:58.800 I think there was a tomato with fish genetics senet 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:00.640 or something, and just one it. If you could talk 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:03.880 about this technology in general and the possible future of it. 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:05.960 Is there something in the science that would prevent us 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.360 from using such technology with humans or animals or is 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.200 it purely an ethical concern? Well, guys, I mean Amy 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:15.920 and Lee, thank you for writing it, and this gave 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:20.040 us a great opportunity to look into this and discuss it. 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.600 It's a I mean, this is a hot topic issue 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.040 in many ways because while it's not like we're seeing, 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.560 you know, cheetah boy running around outside, but we are. 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.200 Science is reaching a level where we've got a lot 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.400 of questions that pop up around things like this. Yeah, 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.680 and it's not even that new of a concern. I 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:41.120 mean a lot of our discoveries about genetics and the 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:45.760 human genome and things like that have given us new anxieties. 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.040 But the fear of crossing species goes way way back. 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.320 It goes back into actually into mythology. You've got you know, 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.640 like folklore with the minotaur, it's you know, half human, 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:03.960 half man, and half man. I like, how I just 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.360 rolled right through that too. I was like, yeah, half human, 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:08.680 half man, that's terrible. You got me. I was trying 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.440 to slip a fully human past on you. As a minotaur. 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:14.400 This is an es School act with the head of 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.800 a rabbit and the body of a different rabbit. Now 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:19.960 the minotaur, of course, with the head of a bull 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:22.840 and the body of a man and all that. All 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:26.720 the terrifying stuff that comes with that. But even more recently, 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.600 but also less recently, you had H. G. Wells the 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.840 Island of Dr Moreau, right, which case you're talking about 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:37.360 surgery in order to alter animals to be more human 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.240 like and then conditioning them in order to be human right, Well, 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.080 had he didn't know anything about genetics, nobody did yet, 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.720 but he he already had this idea and was feeling 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.120 a bit cautious about it. Oh yeah, yeah, Well, I 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:52.600 mean that was also an anxiety I would imagine based 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:56.280 on the surgeries of the day that were often performed 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.520 at open galleries because you had to make your own fun, 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.440 right right. Uh. And there was no TV back then, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:04.640 so and we did talk an awful lot about that 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:09.560 crossing of boundaries in our Future of Monsters episode Oh yeah, 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.560 which we did last October with Robert Lamb. Yeah. Yeah. 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.840 We even talked about it earlier in our September episode 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.320 GMOs Food and fud or If Your Uncertainty and Doubt, 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:23.080 where we talked about how and and Lee alluded to this, 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.840 the idea of the transmit, transplanting genes from one organism 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.520 into another in order. Yeah, in this case, the fish 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.640 jeens to tomatoes. The idea there, I believe was to 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:39.680 make them more resistant to frost, yeah, cold weather. But uh, 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:41.919 some people said, oh, does this mean that I'm going 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.599 to get scales on my tomato or it's gonna taste 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:49.680 fishy or smell fish right, which again, that was if 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.359 you if you were curious about that, then you should 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:54.760 definitely go and listen to both of those episodes because 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:56.840 they kind of lay some groundwork. But we're going to 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:03.080 continue that conversation and talk specifically about incorporating genetic material 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:07.280 of animals and humans together. Yeah, okay, So one of 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:09.159 the first things I think we should do is a 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:13.599 little bit of vocabulary clean up because the word that 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:20.040 always gets used in in popular talk about mixing species 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.880 is hybrid or hybridization. Now, in a technical sense, a 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:27.440 hybrid is something specific, and a lot of the times 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.880 when people are talking about certain kinds of animal human hybrids, 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.200 they're not actually talking about hybrids. In the technical sense, 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:38.400 a hybrid would mean you've crossed germ cells like a 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:42.560 sperm in an egg and created a true genetic mix 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:47.080 of two different parent species, and so the offspring species 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.520 would have the would have a mix of the two 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:55.080 parent species DNA in every cell of its body, whereas 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:57.400 a lot of times what people are actually talking about 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:02.400 or what we would call chimeras. Yeah, chimera is also 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.680 uh interesting organism. This is one that has at least 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:11.800 four parents cells instead of the normal two and has 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.440 at least two different sets of DNA as a result 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.440 of this. Right, so you could be a chimera. That's 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.279 you know, you are Jonathan Strickland, a human of human species, 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.160 but some part of your body has been supplemented with 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:30.440 with cells or genetic material from another species. Okay, so 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:35.200 there we've established the basics. But the question that's at 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:40.680 hand is mixing of humans and other animals in nature 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:46.920 or any other organisms. Has anybody actually already done this 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.159 and have and if they've done it, have they done 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.520 it in ways that we should be concerned about? Um, 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:54.640 they totally done it. Yeah, the answer to your first 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.240 question is yes, whether you want to be concerned about 0:06:57.279 --> 0:06:59.680 it is really a personal issue that we should think on, 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.479 which you know, we're not saying it's right or wrong 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.800 to be concerned or not concerned, merely that it is 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.520 a personal, you know decision you're gonna come to, well, sure. Sure, 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:11.600 and we can tell you about some of the ways 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:13.920 that this has been done and perhaps you can begin 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.880 formulating that opinion. Yeah. And so when it comes to 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:22.160 mixing or or transplanting genetic material from one organism into another, 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.600 we've done a lot more, i would say, of transplanting 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:30.640 human genetic material into animal cells than the other way around. Yeah, 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:35.200 so it's it's more of creating a human animal hybrid 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:39.920 in a cellular sense, uh, with the human material going 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.640 into the animal cells. Um. For for various reasons, and 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.080 a lot of this has been for two major areas 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.840 of research. One is biology just simply learning more about 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:55.440 biological processes, and the other is being able to advance medicine. 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.760 And uh, it turns out that there are really good 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:02.640 reasons to pursue both of these in order for us 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.640 to get a better understanding and also just more effective 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.280 medical treatments for all sorts of stuff. Okay, well let's 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.400 hear an example, all right. So, um, you know, when 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:15.000 a pharmaceutical company is developing drugs and they need to 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:19.200 start testing it on organisms, obviously they don't jump straight 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:22.640 to humans, right. We talked about this in a previous podcast. 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.760 I'm pretty sure, yeah, yeah, about the method that that 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.480 new drugs need to go through before they ever reach 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:30.800 human testing, right. I think we were probably talking about 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:33.200 this with respect to the idea of the organ on 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.640 a chip. Yes, Like, can you you create a system 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:41.720 that allows testing of drugs on simulated human organs that 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.480 doesn't necessitate testing of animals or live human subjects? Right, 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.280 So the testing of animals is a very I mean, 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:53.600 that's that's the accepted way of testing drugs before moving 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:56.680 on to human trials, and to get them safer before 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:58.960 they move on to those human trials. Right. You're learning 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:04.240 exactly why dosages maybe toxic. You're learning whether they're actually 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.360 efficacious or not, what kind of side effects they might have. 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.760 But you know, an animal isn't exactly like a human, right, 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:13.840 even the animals that we tend to use, Like we 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.800 talked about how close mice are as far as you 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:22.280 know when we're testing drugs, Like, well, mice react largely 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.040 the way humans do. That's not entirely true. They have 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:29.760 very different cellular makeup for certain organs. So, for example, 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.880 a little mouse liver. Let's say you want to create 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.520 a drug that you realize it's going to potentially have 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.760 an effect upon the liver. If if that effect arises 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:43.120 within a mouse's liver, that may or may not be 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.360 indicative that the same day could happen to a human. 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.679 So one of the things we've seen, as we've seen 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:54.200 scientists UH put human liver liver cells into mouse test 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.319 subjects and try to find out if in fact they 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.880 could create uh essentially a liver in a mouse that 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.440 is human tissue as opposed to mouse tissue, to thus 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.880 test these drugs and see what the effect would be 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.840 on a human liver. UM Sheep have actually been used 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:15.800 for the same purpose, and most research that involves putting 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:20.560 human genes into animals cells is along these improved animal 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:25.439 testing research lines. Um uh mice have also been given 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:29.040 humanized immune systems an attempt to give us new test 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:33.120 subjects for HIV vaccines. UM there's tinkers at the University 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:36.120 of Michigan that gave a mouse a human anal sphincter 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:43.520 to test treatments for incontinence. What. Yeah, that's science. That's 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.640 something that's science that happened. So here's one that is more. 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.160 This one certainly kind of skirts the line from some 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.920 people's perspective as far as ethics are concerned, this is 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:56.880 this is going to be part of this discussion. Is 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:02.480 this idea of giving animals human like intelligence, if that 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.040 were ever a possibility, would that be ethical? And I'm 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.400 not suggesting that that's what the team I'm about to 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.240 talk about did, but it starts to approach that line. 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.720 So there was an experiment at the universities of Wisconsin 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:20.160 and Rochester to separate universities. Obviously, that involved using a 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.520 toxin to destroy the hippocampus in test mice. That's the 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.800 part of the brain that's associated with memory. So they 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.240 would train the mice to, say, run a maze, and 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:30.800 the mice would learn how to run a maze. Then 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:35.679 they would use this toxin that essentially destroyed the hippocampus, 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:38.480 so the mice could no longer remember how to run 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.120 that mace. They couldn't do it anymore. Then they transplant 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.760 cells from human embryos into the mice, which essentially repaired 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.520 the damage in their neuron cells, and they regain their 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:52.280 cognitive functions and we're able to run the maze again. Yeah. 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.160 The the hippocampus is one of the few parts of 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:59.200 the human brain that does regenerate. Um, I mean and 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.880 not like wolver Raine regenerates, but but but the way 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:07.840 that your skin might regenerate. Wow. Yeah. Um. Other than brains, 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.760 there are some things that humans produce that we would 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:13.240 that it would be kind of cool and convenient if 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:17.480 animals could produce for us, um, like cars, like milk. 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.520 M Some researchers in China took jeans that create human 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.599 milk proteins and swapped them first inten mice is a 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.280 kind of test run, and then into goats, and these 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.120 goats can now produce quantities of humanized milk. So this 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:36.880 experiment involved milking mice to get human milk. Yeah, it's 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.959 good on a resume. Uh. You know, my first reaction 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.719 to this is one of like, this is where we 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.400 get into the creepy thing. Just one of those initial reactions. 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.960 And by that I mean personally, that's my reaction. I 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:53.080 don't mean to suggest everybody reacts that way. But then 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:55.360 it leads me on to think, wait a minute, I 0:12:55.480 --> 0:13:00.640 drink other animals milk all the time. I am a 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.880 big milk consumer. I like cheese as well, and I 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.800 like goat cheese, and I eat so much cheese. Y'all. 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:09.240 You know, it's just one of those things where I 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:13.240 realized it would be weird if it was human goat cheese. Yes, 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:17.280 it would be weird. It would be more weird would 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:21.439 technically would just be human cheese that you got from 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:25.720 a goat. This, this whole thing is kind of odd. 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:28.440 At the same time, however, I can definitely see where 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:33.040 it could be a benefit. You know, it's not It's 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.680 not necessarily the most healthy thing in the world for say, 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:42.160 an infant to be switched to another animal's milk right away. Sure, 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.160 and and yeah, and even formulas don't really make up 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.640 the difference of all of the benefits of human milk, right, So, 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.199 I mean, I totally see where this is going. It's 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.040 just it's interesting that that was the first thing on 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:58.400 this list that had me get that kind of reaction. Yeah, 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.640 but you know, rationally, again, I I get around that 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.120 pretty quickly, But there is that weird emotional reaction that 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:10.840 I can't necessarily explain. Another important use for this kind 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:14.280 of approaches is the cultivation of stem cells. Now, stem 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:16.920 cells are very important. We've talked about those before. Stem 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.640 cells have the potential to turn into other types of cells. Right, 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.720 you've got potent stem cells. Those are the that the 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.440 golden goose transformers. Those are the ones that have the 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.040 potential to be any type of tissue. Now, a lot 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.360 of stem cells have specific types of tissue they're limited 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:36.760 to they can only develop into certain kinds. But at 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:40.840 any rate, cultivating them has been a controversial issue for 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.200 many years, and there we've seen a lot of advances 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:49.560 in science to allow doctors and scientists researchers get stem 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:53.480 cells in innovative ways. Uh So, scientists in the UK 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:55.600 used cow egg cells that they kind of scooped out 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.400 the genetic material. They put in the human genetic material 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.360 from skin cells. They stimulated those cells and that cause 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:05.760 them to divide and create stem cells, which they then harvested. 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.480 Rabbit eggs have been used for the same thing, actually, 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.800 or rabbit egg cells, I should say, because otherwise we're 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:16.880 talking about the Cadberry bunny, which is a different issue. However, 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.120 if you want to send us Cadbury eggs, feel free. 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.320 We will do so much research about how tasty they are. 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.840 I will. I will research until I can't feel my 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:31.200 right arm. So who are you too? You eat candy eggs? 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:36.080 Cadbury eggs are amazing. I'm gonna have to show you 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:40.480 a video when this don't know what I'm going to 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:42.640 show you a video when this is all over of 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:48.360 a guy who makes Cadbury eggs. Benedict's. Is that on 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:52.000 Epic meal Time? No, it's on Andy Candy. It's a 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:58.560 free plug for Andy Candy. There's Uh. There's another category 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.160 of research that can really only be carried out with 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.680 hybrid cells like this. UM. For for example, the Mayo 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.800 Clinic in Minnesota gave pigs some human blood, like human 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.760 blood pumps through their veins. Um. Not like they became 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:17.560 vampire pigs. No, not that I'm aware of um. Uh 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:21.600 And and and having this human blood in the pigs system, 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.600 let's researchers look at how viruses pass from animal cells 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.640 to human cells. Very important work. Yes, yeah, we have 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.120 talked about that before on this show. I believe in 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:36.840 terms of the future, yes, yes. And hybrids can can 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.480 also possibly help us gain a better understanding of cells. 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:45.640 Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, which is generally important for medical 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.680 research because it's one of those tiny things that that 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:50.960 we can't really get that good of a look at 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.840 by just looking at normal old human cells. For example, 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:59.120 in human pig hybrid cells created at the University of Warwick, 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.800 UM Higgs egg cell will be implanted with a human 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.719 cell nucleus. Okay, so so like so like scoop out 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.400 the pig nucleus, put in a human nucleus UM, and 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.560 then watching the cells grow UM. Based on that that 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:18.000 large amount of genetic information from the human nucleus, and 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:21.960 though we little bits of genetic information from the mitochondria 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:26.560 that are still pig mitochondria UM will throw each DNA 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:30.720 types rolls into more of a stark contrast than we 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.320 would normally see from from regular cells UM, because you know, 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.840 the different cellular structures affect the whole cells. You know, 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:42.919 complete growth right so UM. So hypothetically watching and learning 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:46.240 from these interactions could lead to better research into therapies 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.400 for genetic defects and stuff like Alzheimer's. That's really interesting. 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.160 I never considered that, but it makes so much sense 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.000 when you've got you know, we talk about complex systems 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.560 all the time on this show, whether it's biological system 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.600 or a climate system, and the idea of being able 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:06.280 to kind of force a system where there is this 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:10.359 stark contrast where you can see those reactions more clearly 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.040 because there's this delineation due to the fact that you're 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.720 talking about two different species. Genetic information is a really 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:19.960 novel approach that I honestly had never heard of until 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:24.200 until just now. Yeah, using this method be a way 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.919 to isolate variables, right right. Um. Then there's also the 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:32.680 crazy art side of things, of course. Um there's what yes, 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:36.879 crazy art hybrids for crazy art. Um, there's Dr Moreau 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:43.680 as an artist. A guy named Eduardo cock Um worked 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.080 together with a plant biologist by the name of Neil 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:50.320 Olswisky to put a little bit of of Eduardo's genetic 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:56.840 material into a pink petunia. It doesn't do anything other 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:00.360 than grow pretty much normally like a petunia would. Um, 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:05.199 but he does call it a plant amole. Why wouldn't you. 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.760 That's pretty cool. So this is this is swamp thing 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:12.360 they made swamp thing or or it's man thing, one 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:14.879 of the two. It could be either one. It's and 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:16.680 it was. It was a little bit of his amino 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.280 globin DNA, So it's it's part of it's sort of 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.399 clever because it's it's uh, you know, part of your 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:27.320 DNA that tells your body which cells are yours and 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.680 which cells are something else's, And so by incorporating them 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.720 into something else that was kind of cute. What if 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.479 it turns out this bowl of flowers is in fact 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.080 the same character from Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy that thinks, 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.159 oh no, not again before breaking on the surface of 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.919 the earth, Dear, What if these flowers are sentient and 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:50.760 have a soul, thus saying oh no, not again when falling, 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.359 he's doomed his genetic material to a terrible fate. Yeah. Actually, 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:58.280 I already know the answer to that, because there's a 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.199 character in the Hitchhecker's Guide series gets reincarnated over and 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.679 over again and is constantly killed by Arthur Dint And 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:07.920 it's not No, it's not EDWARDO. Well, okay, So we've 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:12.919 talked about putting human genetic material into animal cells, and 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:15.639 you know, I think a lot of people would be 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:17.760 on board with that basically if it's done for a 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:21.239 good cause, if it's done for useful research that can 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:23.359 save lives or teach us more about how the body 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.400 works and things like that. But what about going the 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:32.920 opposite direction, So bringing animal material into a human organism. Yeah, well, 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:36.280 we've done some of that. It's not a genetic transplant, 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.880 but we've seen zeno transplant experiments. That's where you take 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:43.800 an animal organ and transplant into a human person. You 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.760 mean like Dr Brinkley, Dr Brinkley. Have you not read 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:50.280 about Dr I haven't read about Dr Brinkley's gonna have 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.520 to explain. Dr Brinkley was a guy who came up 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.040 with the popular goat testical cure, where he would put 0:20:56.119 --> 0:21:00.520 goat gonads into men's bodies to increase their virility. That's 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:03.320 not what I was thinking, but that work out for 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:07.600 people not so great in the end. Yeah. I just 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:09.399 looked it up and uh, and his full name was 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:13.800 John Romulus Brinkley. He later changed the Romulus to Richard 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:16.359 And I can't imagine why I was hoping we changed 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:18.960 it to James Tiberius Brinkley. I was. I was hoping 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.439 he would go with John Vulcan Brinkley. So we have 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:25.480 a very similar joke in mind. But I think he's 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:30.800 better Joe. Yeah. Well, at any rate. Uh, you know, 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:33.879 the xeno transplants really are more like things like taking 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:37.679 a baboon heart or a pig heart and transplanting it 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:43.160 into a human patient, and I guess you could say 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:48.480 it's been met with limited success. Really, the transplanting another 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:53.800 species organ into a human very frequently results in the 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:57.360 human body rejecting that organ. Yeah, well, I mean transplanting 0:21:57.359 --> 0:22:00.480 a human organ into another human can frequently and in 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:04.280 rejection of the and and smaller pieces I think have 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:08.080 found more success. I think I've read about pig heart 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:14.240 valves to bypass surgery, things like that. Also, joints being 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:18.040 joint replacement surgery. Sometimes the joints are taken from animals, 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:20.760 and that has seen more success. But yes, when you 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:24.840 start getting into complicated tissues like kidney or heart, then 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:28.840 the chance for rejection gets a lot higher. Yeah, that 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.800 would just be my non expert intuition would be that 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:36.480 the more the tissue is just a sort of basic 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:40.359 mechanical object, the better it would do. And and the 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:42.320 more it's like a complex thing, it seems like that 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:45.199 would be more likely to not work out. Yeah, anything 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.159 that's tied to any kind of hormones or proteins or 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.080 any of those we little bits that fly around and 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.000 muck all of our stuff. They call the decisions on 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.600 our behalf without us knowing about it. Put some dead 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:58.879 leaves under your skin, and yeah, I just shove it 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:01.880 in there. It's fine, Like suddenly it became a Tim 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:05.840 Burton movie. Uh. Well, the interesting thing here to me, 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:08.760 I mean, this is all interesting, but this also leads 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:11.719 to the fact that there are doctors and scientists who 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:15.800 are trying to work with animals to develop more human 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:19.679 like organs, you know, actually cultivating human like organs in 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:25.000 animals for the purposes of transplanting those into actual human patients. 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:27.119 So this would combine both of the things we just 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:30.320 talked about. So it would be like making putting genetic 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:32.560 material from a human into an animal to make the 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:35.400 animal grow something that's human that you can take out 0:23:35.400 --> 0:23:37.280 of the animal and put into a human exactly. It 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:39.520 would be the idea of you've got a human heart, 0:23:39.560 --> 0:23:42.120 but you've got your human heart from a pig, so 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:44.119 kind of like getting your human milk from a goat. 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:48.520 I guess, uh, but you know that's that's the possible 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:51.159 future that we have with this. Now. Granted, this is 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:54.560 one element one one line of research. We've talked a 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:57.760