Chinese scientists who have successfully produced two chimera piglets containing monkey DNA is the world's first ever monkey-pig hybrids have been born at the moment.
State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology
Although the two piglets died within a week, both were found normal the time they where born contains DNA from cynomolgus monkeys in their heart, liver, spleen, lung and skin.
The research aims to find ways of growing human organs in animals for transplantation. More than 4,000 embryos were implanted into a sows, but only two were successfully born.
Five-day old piglet embryos were injected with monkey stem cells which had been adjusted to produce a fluorescent protein, allowing researchers to find out where the cells ended up its development.
It was unclear why the two piglets died, since eight other piglets without the monkey cells also died, they think that it's a problem with IVF process rather than chimerism.
This is not the first time hybrid animals have been created. In 2017, researchers at the Salk Institute in California created pig-human chimeras with around one in 100,000 cells being human, but died 28 days later.
The research also hope that one day it could lead to an alternative solution to organ donation.
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