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British Government Flashes The Go-Ahead For Research On Human-Animal Hybrids

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Feb 15, 2016 02:14 AM EST

The first guidelines to conduct research on reproducing human organs in farm animals has been given the green signal by the British government. It is an important milestone for researchers who hope to undertake this kind of research, according to the Daily Mail.

For a month, there has been a hope for a research which most believe would be advantageous to the human species.

Drawn up with the goal of giving a means to regulate technology combining human genetic information or tissue with animals, the guidelines might give a clue to showing organs for transplantation, and also open new avenues to examine diseases.

While animal rights activists are slamming scientists for the "cruel" and "dangerous" experiments, other researchers such as Robert Lechler, president of the Academy of Medical Sciences, believe that research on human-animal hybrids would help us to understand illnesses.

"Research involving introducing human tissues or genetic information into animals has the potential to yield great advances in biomedical science, especially in the understanding and treatment of disease," he said, adding that the new guidelines will make us take a consistent approach to a rather dangerous technology.

Still, the green signal has been flashed with the hope that the nation will become a centre for the research and lead to "major scientific advancements", according to The Times.

However, human-animal research has already begun elsewhere, as American scientists created hybrid embryos last month to help human organs grow inside farm animals like sheep and pigs.

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