Scientists from the University of California are growing human organs inside pigs in a bid to overcome the worldwide shortage of human organs available for transplants. Human stem cells have been injected into pig embryos to produce human-pig embryos known as chimeras. According to the research team, the pregnant sows should not be any different to normal pigs in behaviour and appearance, except one organ will be made of human cells. The human-pig hybrid embryos will be left to develop for 28 days inside the sows before the pregnancies will be aborted and the tissues removed for analysis. BBC reports: Creating the chimeric embryos takes two stages. First, a technique known as CRISPR gene editing is used to remove DNA from a newly fertilised pig embryo that would enable the resulting foetus to grow a pancreas. This creates a genetic “niche” or void. Then, human induced pluripotent (iPS) stem cells are injected into the embryo. The iPS cells were derived from adult cells and “dialled back” to become stem cells capable of developing into any tissue in the body. The team at UC Davis hopes the human stem cells will take advantage of the genetic niche in the pig embryo [...]