Pandora's Box

By: Jennifer Lee

Recently, scientists from China and the United States have been experimenting with growing human-monkey embryos. Other human-animal chimeras have been created, but none have succeeded. The scientists believe that making a human-monkey chimera will be more successful due to the amount of genes humans and monkeys share. Chimeras are created by injecting another animal’s cells, in this case, a human’s cells, into the embryo of another animal. This is a very controversial topic and there is a law against creating such chimeras in the U.S. Professor Julian Savulesco says, “what looks like a non-human animal may mentally be close to a human… This research opens Pandora’s Box.” People question the morality of creating human-animal chimeras because the chimeras may turn out to be more human than animal. However, the scientists are creating these chimeras in hope of being able to produce organs for the many people who die from not being able to have an organ transplant. Lead scientist, Tan Tao, claims that this is a potential solution.

The mystery about these human-monkey organisms is that we don’t know how human or how animal they will be. Even if they are more animal than human, would it be morally acceptable to raise them for organs? While we are still a long way from successfully creating a human-monkey organism, the morality of such a decision is important to consider.