O Brave New World, please come to pass

**Mythos** · March 25, 2008, 05:50 PM

I found this post in a blog, and I thought it was extremely interesting.

Link

What do you think?

**Bokks** · March 26, 2008, 11:54 AM

I'm not sure it's feasible. If you can use a cow, why not just use an egg?
And what are you going to do after that? Grow a human... with potential cow DNA? We can't really know that all stem cells are completely neutral, there could be a cow "setting" left where the human neuclei would be.
And I can just hear the puns when kids find out someone was born from such a process...

**Simetrical** · March 27, 2008, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by Lector V

I'm not sure it's feasible. If you can use a cow, why not just use an egg?

Because we can produce a heck of a lot more cow eggs than human eggs. Producing human eggs requires getting women to donate them. There are ethical concerns with paying them much of anything, there are ethical concerns with using third-world countries, so there are only a tiny number of eggs available. Cow eggs can be extracted in any desired quantity with no legal or ethical issues.

Originally Posted by Lector V

And what are you going to do after that? Grow a human... with potential cow DNA?

The nuclear DNA is extracted first. If it's not fully extracted for some reason, the embryo is not going to survive with cow DNA mixed in with human DNA. It's not possible. The catch is that you will have a cow's mitochondrial DNA, which always comes from the egg (so it can be used for tracing maternity). This is not thought to be nearly as important as the nuclear DNA in determining how the organism develops. I don't think its full effects are known, however, which is a large part of why this technique is speculative.

**Bokks** · March 28, 2008, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by Simetrical

Because we can produce a heck of a lot more cow eggs than human eggs.

Oh, I'm sorry, I mean to say a chicken egg (boy, I've been mistyping around you a lot lately!

) the full effects of which I'm pretty aware, since the proportions of the two eggs are vastly different.
But still, it doesn't seem like there are such huge shortages of fertile human eggs that we have to think of an alternative to the traditional (and to be a little base... a lot more fun) way to make children that currently stands the test of time.

Or rather, actually, (now that I remember what the article was about

) the creation of stem cells. If we can use cows eggs to shelter human DNA, then why can we not cow stem cells for the same purpose as the human stem cells? It seems to me that the same ethics which would stop a person from using a human cell outright are the same ethics that would say that the human cell has been used and then recycled like some organic plastic bottle. It seems like to me using a human cell in that way is the worse evil, at least with using a human cell is removing the potential of life before it had really even been affirmed, which seems to be (to be extremely base but a valid point I think) akin to masterbation, which is essentially murdering millions of sperm that each have the equal potential of being a human as an unfertilized human egg. By grafting human DNA to a cows egg, however, and then fertilizing it you are in essense rearticulating, even artificializing, human life.

Originally Posted by Simetrical

The nuclear DNA is extracted first. If it's not fully extracted for some reason, the embryo is not going to survive with cow DNA mixed in with human DNA. It's not possible. The catch is that you will have a cow's mitochondrial DNA, which always comes from the egg (so it can be used for tracing maternity). This is not thought to be nearly as important as the nuclear DNA in determining how the organism develops. I don't think its full effects are known, however, which is a large part of why this technique is speculative.

Which is exactly what I'm afraid of. Even if the mitochondrial DNA isn't as important as the nuclear DNA it seems nearly impossible to be completely mute on the process of life and development.

Plus the cultural aspect of a small but present population of these kids born in such a manner is not a moot point, kids can be very mean, and one kid in a class whose unconventional birth process has been discovered willbe rediculed and cast as an outsider. Plus, for a more comical look at a serious point, growing your udders during puberty and developing white and black patches would be very emotionally scaring. There's also, back on seriousness, the fact that cows are herbivores, can DNA from an herbivore and an omnivore even be switched without some dietetic repurcussions?

**Simetrical** · March 28, 2008, 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by Lector V

Oh, I'm sorry, I mean to say a chicken egg (boy, I've been mistyping around you a lot lately!

) the full effects of which I'm pretty aware, since the proportions of the two eggs are vastly different.

Chicken eggs as we know them are more than we want. They contain lots of nutrients and other stuff. I'm not sure, but I think the ovum may be developed to the point of being useless, too. We want a single cell, an egg cell, not a whole egg. (Although I've heard it said that much of the contents of a chicken egg really is a single egg cell.)

Originally Posted by Lector V

But still, it doesn't seem like there are such huge shortages of fertile human eggs that we have to think of an alternative to the traditional (and to be a little base... a lot more fun) way to make children that currently stands the test of time.

The point is stem cells.

Originally Posted by Lector V

Or rather, actually, (now that I remember what the article was about

) the creation of stem cells. If we can use cows eggs to shelter human DNA, then why can we not cow stem cells for the same purpose as the human stem cells?

Because cow cells have cow DNA, and human cells have human DNA. (Where I say "DNA" without qualification, of course I mean nuclear DNA, not mitochondrial.) Cow cells will be recognized as foreign by the human immune system due to differing surface proteins and so on, and will therefore be relatively worthless for incorporation into a human body, which is why we want stem cells to begin with.

Originally Posted by Lector V

Which is exactly what I'm afraid of. Even if the mitochondrial DNA isn't as important as the nuclear DNA it seems nearly impossible to be completely mute on the process of life and development.

Yes, that's why much more research is needed.

Originally Posted by Lector V

Plus the cultural aspect of a small but present population of these kids born in such a manner is not a moot point, kids can be very mean, and one kid in a class whose unconventional birth process has been discovered willbe rediculed and cast as an outsider.

We aren't talking about reproduction using this method, that I've seen, only medical therapies.

Originally Posted by Lector V

There's also, back on seriousness, the fact that cows are herbivores, can DNA from an herbivore and an omnivore even be switched without some dietetic repurcussions?

Because all the most important structures are due to nuclear DNA, as I've said. Mitochondrial DNA affects only (I'm a little shaky here and may be off the mark) the mitochondria, which are organelles within the cell that deal with certain very low-level cellular processes. These processes are close to identical in all animals, and certainly in all mammals. How the cell as a whole develops is controlled by nuclear DNA, and the same goes for super-cellular structures like your stomach. So theoretically, there should be no problem at all, but we'll have to see.