Specifically, the critics worry that human cells could become part of the developing brain of such an embryo - and of the brain of the resulting animal. The biggest concern, they said, is that someone could try to take this work further and attempt to make a baby out of an embryo made this way. But this type of scientific work and the possibilities it opens up raises serious questions for some ethicists. Jeffrey Platt, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan, who is doing related experiments but was not involved in the new research. "This work is an important step that provides very compelling evidence that someday when we understand fully what the process is we could make them develop into a heart or a kidney or lungs," said Dr. Some other scientists NPR spoke with agree the research could be useful. In addition, Belmonte said he hopes this kind of work could lead to new insights into early human development, aging and the underlying causes of cancer and other disease. We are trying to understand how cells from different organisms communicate with one another." "And we are not doing anything like that. "Our goal is not to generate any new organism, any monster," Belmonte said. Such mixed-species embryos are known as chimeras, named for the fire-breathing creature from Greek mythology that is part lion, part goat and part snake. "This knowledge will allow us to go back now and try to re-engineer these pathways that are successful for allowing appropriate development of human cells in these other animals," Belmonte told NPR. Six zoo personnel were killed in the shelling, it said.Shots - Health News Embryo Experiments Reveal Earliest Human Development, But Stir Ethical Debate "They do like to boast in front of the people about what they can do, they like when people admire them, it is a great joy for them to communicate with people," he said.Īround 4,000 animals from the ecopark were evacuated to other sanctuaries across Ukraine at the beginning of the invasion, according to the zoo. "They are fed up and bored to see zookeepers only," Kuvshar said of chimpanzees in Ukraine. He speculated that Chichi may have escaped from her enclosure because she was bored, given the lack of recent attention from a public understandably distracted by their own shattered lives. Chichi during happier times at Feldman Ecopark in Kharkiv. The ecopark has since permanently closed due to the conflict, which has seen Kharkiv continue to face deadly shelling.Ĭhichi's escape from her enclosure at Kharkiv Zoo was likely made easier by the fact that she used to be kept behind an electric fence at her home before the war, said Serhii Kuvshar, who was Chichi’s caretaker at the ecopark and has also known her since childhood. I talked to her and invited with my jacket, helped to put it on and gave her a hug."Ĭhichi, who once resided at the Feldman Ecopark in the city’s northern suburbs, was relocated to Kharkiv Zoo after heavy fighting in early March, shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country. All that's needed is negotiations,” the 45-year-old zookeeper said. It took careful negotiations, she said, to overcome the chimp's initial skepticism. who has known Chichi since the primate's childhood, can be seen approaching her and helping her put on the yellow jacket in the video. "After I heard that she left, I followed her to the square and began to talk to her." Zookeeper Victoria Kozyreva helps Chichi put on a rain jacket before wheeling her back to the zoo. “Chimpanzees are highly intellectual creatures, it wasn’t difficult to her to break the fence and leave,” Victoria Kozyreva, the zookeeper at Kharkiv Zoo who helped persuade Chichi to return home, told NBC News on Wednesday. Videos of the incident have been shared widely, offering both a rare moment of levity in the thick of Russia's war and an insight into the plight of animals in Ukraine whose homes have also come under bombardment. Video shows Chichi eventually being persuaded to put on a yellow hooded rain jacket, before being returned home perched on a bicycle, after briefly roaming through Ukraine's second largest city.
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