Hybrid embryos

Japan will allow scientists to grow human cells in an animal embryo and transfer it to an animal’s uterus, reversing a ban on the practice. The country’s science ministry announced the decision, which is effective immediately, on 1 March. The ultimate aim of the research is to use animals, such as pigs, to grow organs that can be transplanted into humans. The relaxed regulations would allow Hiromitsu Nakauchi, a stem-cell biologist at Stanford University in California and the University of Tokyo, to pursue experiments in Japan that he has planned for more than a decade, pending ethical approval. Nakauchi has created pig embryos that are genetically altered so that they cannot produce a pancreas, and he plans to insert induced pluripotent stem cells into the embryos. These cells are obtained by reprogramming human cells so that they revert to an embryonic-like state from which they can form other cell types. The hope is that the stem cells will develop into a pancreas composed mainly of human cells as the embryo develops.

Basically, growing human parts in pigs for later use in humans.

Neat idea, but I wonder how American religious atavism has held up such research.