Is it possible to mix animal dna with human dna

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The consequences of this split are likely to be significant, even potentially affecting your own access to healthcare. In around 30 countries , gene editing of human embryos is already banned outright or at least tightly controlled. For example, in the UK only a handful of research groups have been granted a licence to conduct experiments, and certainly not with any aim of bringing an embryo to term.

But in most countries, things are less clear. And some commentators have made the point that, despite outside perceptions, Chinese science is far from unregulated. Yet the fact remains that He was able to conduct the work unimpeded, with evidence suggesting he may have even received state funding.

With a technology moving as quickly as CRISPR , many nations will not have had the time nor expertise to develop a comprehensive stance. Nations with developed regulation for biotechnology will be able to adapt more quickly and easily to the latest advances and put restrictions in place.

Other states will scramble to keep up, leaving scientists to proceed without having to consider the ethical or social implications of their work. We have seen what happens when there is this kind of international disconnect with other biotechnologies.

People travel from all over the world to private clinics that provide — or claim to provide — stem cell therapies unavailable in their home countries. There have been high-profile cases of people travelling from the US to Mexico in order to skirt national laws and access mitochondrial replacement therapy.

Take for instance the boysenberry a cross between the raspberry, blackberry, dewberry and loganberry or the clementine a cross between a mandarin and an orange. We have little trouble consuming such hybrids for our lunch. Our apparent comfort with some hybrids does not stop at plants. Mules have never been a source of alarm, yet they are the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Still, while hybrids in general can create a sense of foreboding, not all hybrids do, and it may be that mixing biology is most psychologically problematic when it comes to our own human DNA — and perhaps especially when it comes to mixing it with that of other animals.

One reason that human-pig hybrids are a source of anxiety is that they can conjure up a fear of our own death. The possibility that a pig could grow your next pancreas is a cogent reminder that humans are also animals, and this very biological reminder can create existential angst.

The notion that humans have souls, but animals do not, was and still is for some a popular belief. It gives us a sense of being superior, above or outside the biological order. Harvesting human hearts from goats can shatter this protective belief, leaving us feeling disgusted and dismayed.

By keeping thoughts of our animal nature at bay, we conveniently forget that we are nothing more than mortal biological organisms waiting to fertilise the fields.

Would we be less likely to eat pigs if we were using them to grow human organs? Credit: iStock. We eat pigs, not humans. Would you still enjoy bacon if it came from the pig who had nursed your liver for the past six months? More powerfully, the prospect of pig-humans also confuses the moral compass.

Biologically merging pigs with humans reminds us of our shared similarities, something that we mostly try to forget when savouring the smell of frying bacon.