First live birth of a chimeric monkey using embryonic stem cell lines

A team of researchers in China has achieved a significant scientific milestone by reporting the live birth of a monkey containing a high proportion of cells derived from a monkey stem cell line. This "chimeric" monkey is composed of cells originating from two genetically different embryos of the same monkey species. While this recurrence had previously been demonstrated in rodents like rats and mice, it had not been achieved in other species. The study has extensive implications such as understanding pluripotency in primates, potential applications in genetic engineering, and species conservation. This research raises the prospect of developing more precise monkey models for the investigation of neurological disorders and other areas of biomedical research.

The research involved cynomolgus monkeys which are commonly used in biomedical studies. The team established nine stem cell lines from cells obtained from 7-day-old blastocyst embryos and enhanced their ability to transform into different types of cells. They injected a specific subset of these stem cells into early monkey morula embryos, resulting in 12 pregnancies and six live births. One live-born monkey and one miscarried fetus were significantly chimeric, with cells derived from the stem cells present throughout various tissues. Those tissues were the brain, heart, kidney, liver, and gastrointestinal tract. The contribution of the stem cells to different tissue types ranged from 21% to 92%, with an average of 67% across 26 different types of tissue. The researchers plan to further investigate the techniques underlying the survival of the embryos in host animals. The aim is to enhance the efficiency of chimera generation in the future. 

Links -
First live birth of a chimeric monkey using embryonic stem cell lines | ScienceDaily
First live chimeric monkey is technical feat, ethics concern (fiercebiotech.com)

Third CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Edited Baby to be Born in China This Year

CRISPR-Cas9 is powerful gene editing tool that geneticist and medical researchers can use to edit portions of DNA in an organisms genome by adding, removing, or altering it. In the face of such a powerful discovery, the Second International Summit on Human Gene Editing was held in Hong Kong last November to discuss the pros and cons of technology like CRISPR-Cas9. While going over the clinical implications, ethics, and legal considerations of possibly creating genetically engineered humans, the entire summit was turned on its head when He Jiankui, a Chinese biophysicist, confessed that he had already done it.

He Jiankui the year prior had edited the genome of twin girls, who have already been born. To further the shock, at the time of his announcement a second Chinese woman was pregnant with another CRISPR baby. This fact was proven by an early pregnancy test, which brings the world total to three genetically modified humans that are known of. The child has already been born but the date will not be released due to risk of exposing the identity of the parents and child.

He Jiankui and his team used CRISPR to alter a gene called CCR5 in an attempt to make the girls immune to ever getting HIV. The scientific community was widely split upon finding out this discovery. Some condemned him for doing such a pointless procedure with such high risk, but others don't know what to feel. For better or worse, in science there is a notion of "all that ends well is well" and as of now He Jiankui claims that is experiment led to "two beautiful Chinese girls."

This immense overstep in the scientific community forces us as a human population to come to terms with the fact that for the first time in out existence, we can shape our evolution. We have the ability to cure diseases like sickle cell and HIV, but where does the line stop? CRISPR-Cas9 technology is relatively easy to use so what is stopping scientists from starting to modify hair color? eye color? Will we allow Designer Babies? Is it even ethically responsible to allow parents to make these life altering decisions on a human that isn't themselves? This is only scratching the surface of the many questions we have left to answer.




I think that Aldous Huxley warned us best when he wrote in his novel Brave New World:
"All right then," said the savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat, the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind."
There was a long silence.
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.

The Largest-Scale Genetic Study of Chinese People to Date

Data from noninvasive prenatal testing for fetal trisomy (condition that can cause Down Syndrome) was used by scientists in order to determine and predict past and present characteristics of people in China. The testing analyzes free floating bits of fetal DNA in the mother's blood. This test occurs in China and costs only $100 compared to high quality, whole genome sequencing which costs $1,000 per person. Using the cheaper testing method came with a cost by covering only 10 percent or less of the person's genome, while the more thorough test covered 80 percent or more. Designing custom software and using heavy computations and statistics made up for the leftover analysis.

The resulting data represented nearly every Chinese province which eclipsed many genome-wide studies which include only tens of thousands of participants making this the largest scale genetic study of Chinese people. A total of 141,431 individuals participated. Some information they reported included data showing that more northern than southern Chinese populations contain a mutation of FADS2, a gene involved in metabolizing fatty acids, which indicates a diet richer in animal content. This helps explain the type of food that they eat in their area based on their resources and climate. Also, DNA that was not aligned to the human genome against a database of viral sequences were found in order to diagnose viruses, most commonly identifying hepatitis B and other viruses that can affect pregnancies. In addition, 48 gene variants associated with height and 13 with body mass index were collected by analyzing the height and body mass index of their samples. Doing this reveals associations between genes and specific traits through noninvasive pregnancy testing. This data collection on evaluating prenatal testing is still moving forward today for more than 3.5 million Chinese people.

This type of research seems very promising and intriguing to me as they can continue this type of data analysis for other races, not just Chinese. Since I am Filipino, I'm hoping they can expand their data collection in the Philippines so I can learn more about genetic characteristics and their history. Each race should receive this type of testing which can lead to predictions in human traits of fetuses.

Reporting from the Maury Show: Two Female Mice are left with pups, but where is the father??

While Maury disputes over who is the father, we will have to resort to his team of "experts" who can run the DNA of the pups to test the possible parents. However, they said something seemed off with the analysis, the children have the combined genes from only the mothers! Can it be possible that true love at first sight knows no boundaries?

Miraculously, scientists in China have been able to reproduce viable offspring using parents that are of the same sex. While the idea may seem amazing, the technique is relatively new and is not successful enough to implement outside the lab. In fact, female-female parents are only 14% likely to produce healthy-viable offspring whereas male-male parents have a 2% likelihood of producing offspring which end up dying soon after (1). Nonetheless, the process is highly sophisticated and the procedure slightly differs between the two sexes.

For female mice, what happened was that scientists made their eggs act like sperm. They used chemicals to treat the eggs in a manner that an egg thought it was fertilized, causing it to undergo division. At that moment, the researchers extracted stem cells that were haploid and used CRISPR to delete various sections of DNA to erase the genes coding for being an egg. Lastly, this "sperm cell" was fertilized with an egg extracted from the other mother and placed into a separate surrogate mother.

                                       
                                           A female egg being treated to act like a sperm cell

When it comes to male mice, I imagine the resulting egg as someone who did their middle school art project the day before it was due. The researchers had to extract a haploid stem cell as they did with the female mice, but what was tricky was that they had to convert a sperm cell into an egg. At this point, they were able to pair the modified sperm cells from both fathers into an enucleated egg, an egg which had its nucleus removed, erasing its biological instructions. The scientists then tried to create and combine the enucleated egg into a placenta and I imagine that was when it all started falling apart. Of course, should there have been pups born from the procedure they were doomed to die shortly after.

Although the idea of producing an offspring from the same sex seems cool, I am not sure how practical it will be in the long run. The article even mentions that it will be an arduous process to convince people that it is a safe practice for human use. Moreover, it will be a complicated process taking this procedure out of mice and using it for humans, especially if there is a percentage that the procedure could compromise the health of a baby. I also wonder how this technique would affect a boy and a girl given that their parents may only be the same sex. However, at one point in time, no one could have possibly imagined that the world would be this advanced, so you never know what could happen in the future.