Tag: Stem Cell research

Chimera (genetics)

From Wikipedia

Chimeras in research

In biological research, chimeras are artificially produced by physically mixing cells from two different organisms. Chimeras are not hybrids, […] (like a donkey and a horse) that form a single zygote that will develop as much as it can (in this case into a live mule […]);

in comparison, chimeras are the physical mixing of cells from two independent zygotes:

for example, one from the donkey and one from the horse. “Chimera” is a broad term and is often applied to many different types of mixing of cells from two different species.

Some chimeras can result in the eventual development of an adult animal composed of cells from both donors, which may be of different species – for example, in 1984 a chimeric geep was produced by combining embryos from a goat and a sheep.[8]

[…]

Mouse chimeras  …

From Annie Hall:

. . .  MAN: Now, Marshall McLuhan–

WOODY ALLEN: You don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan's work–

MAN: Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called TV, Media and Culture, so I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity.

WOODY ALLEN: Oh, do you? . . . Oh, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here. Come over here for a second?

WOODY ALLEN: Tell him.

MARSHALL McLUHAN: — I heard, I heard what you were saying. You, you know nothing of my work. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.

WOODY ALLEN: Boy, if life were only like this.

Sometimes it is. Via Josh Marshall, Charles Krauthammer gets his comeuppance on some nonsense he wrote on stem cell research. Groundbreaking stem cell researcher James Thomson delivers it:

Krauthammer's central argument — that the president's misgivings about embryonic stem cell research inspired innovative alternatives — is fundamentally flawed, too. Yamanaka was of course working in Japan, and scientists around the world are pursuing the full spectrum of options, in many cases faster than researchers in the United States.

Ah, sometimes life IS like this.