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With the use of stem cell technology, scientists have generated human cells and tissues in pig embryos on Thursday. It is the first time that chimeras have proved it can be made from humans and animals.

The study was funded by a private Spanish source and was published through the journal Cell. Scientists have long aspired of growing human organs in animal bodies to be used for transplants. But the study still has a long way to go.

CNN reported, Dr. Jun Wu, scientist in the gene expression laboratory at the Salk Institute said the research is still far from developing human organs. The process of integrating cells of humans and animals has proven to be difficult. Since humans have been found to be more evolved compared to pigs.

The scientists first tested the process on rat-mouse chimeras by creating a mouse embryo without a pancreas. To generate the mouse embryos without the pancreas, Wu and the team used the gene-editing technique CRISPR/Cas9.

Then rat stem cells that included the gene for the pancreas was inserted into the mutant embryos. The stem cells developed into a rat pancreas and the mouse grew health with a normal lifespan.

Using the same concept, the same method was used to develop rat eyes and hearts within the mice embryos. By genetically disabling the mouse host they generated organs within the host species. It even gave the mice bonus organs like the gallbladder which are not present in rats.

Moving on, they began generating different types of human induced pluripotent stem cells and inserted them into pig embryos. The embryos were implanted into sows for one month.

BBC reported out of the 2,075 embryos, only 186 embryos with human cells developed up to the 28-day stage. The success rate in human stem cells in pigs was lower compared to the rat-mouse chimeras.

Their findings in interspecies chimeras are valuable for future research. At this early stage of research Wu explained that there are many challenges ahead in the development of human organs.