Jon: Welcome to episode 170 of "The Digital Life" a show about our insights into the future of design and technology. I'm your host Jon Follett and with me is founder and co-host Dirk Knemeyer.

Dirk: Hello Jon.

Jon: Hello Dirk. This week on the podcast we'll discuss human animal chimeras and bioethics.

Dirk: What's a chimera?

Jon: If you know your Greek mythology you might be familiar with this creature which is a monstrous fire breathing hybrid, which is part lion part goat and has a tail which which ends with the snake's head. That's the mythological beast. Today the term chimera is is used in embryology to describe a hybrid organism that has tissue from multiple species. There's great interest in producing chimeras for studying disease pathology, testing out drugs, and hopefully eventually organ transplantation right, so growing human organs in animals and in some way.

Scientists have worked on this kind of research for years high in the hopes of being able to do just that, or you know, at the very least you know begin to understand how they might how they might go in that direction. However in November of 2015 that a National Institutes of Health decided that there were enough bioethical in animal welfare concerns about chimera research that they they put a ban on funding this type of research. Just now they've released a request for public comment around a a proposal to amend sections of their guidelines for human stem cell research around the proposed scope of human animal chimera research. We have until September 6th if you're part of the public that wants to comment. You can go on the and NIH website up until September 6th and give your thoughts to that agency.

There there are so many aspects to this very promising technology that can make you feel uneasy if you're not familiar with with the history of it. There's there's also a point worth making that for cardiac patients who have problems with the valves in their heart, we're already implanting animal valves from bovine or porcine or, whatever the ... equine is the one.

Dirk: I love your use of the -ines Jon.

Jon: Yeah.

Dirk: I'd be saying horses, cows, pigs-

Jon: Right, I was trying to get the terms right. I couldn't remember them. There's already the usage of certain parts of animal organs in humans which is the opposite route from what we're talking about here. Additionally for folks with diabetes insulin is porcine derived, or it can be, so that's another another area where we're using animal product or part of an animal to help human life forward as context for that.

Dirk what what's your impression of the NIH re-opening this research potentially to research scientists?

Dirk: It's interesting. So much of the things we talk about are interesting, but chimeras are for me particularly interesting and scary. It's really like something out of a Hieronymus Bosch piece of artwork. We're really bringing the nightmares to life. Maybe the problems is our framing, that we shouldn't view them as nightmares, but this is happening. We're not that far from potentially, theoretically based on what we know of the science of how we can manipulate various types of organic matter and genome from having a theoretical ape with a human face or a pig with human feet or something.

Jon: Right.

Dirk: These specific examples may or may not be possible, but they are emblematic of things that are possible in terms of combining the human form with with the animal. From the NIH's perspective the concerns are more ethical. My understanding is that it is less about the the hand and the foot and more about the mind and soul so to speak. If we are imbuing into these animals human consciousness, the ability to think like a person, to have self awareness in ways that we would understand us human that that's something to be avoided. I think the NIH closed things down in order to avoid those types of situations,