Scientists have grown human kidneys in pigs, for the very first time. Researchers at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wuyi University created human-pig chimeric embryos containing a combination of human and pig cells. When they transferred into 13 surrogate pig mothers, they developed kidneys that contained mostly human cells at a rate of 50 to 60 per cent, giving hope for potential transplants in the future. “Rat organs have been produced in mice, and mouse organs have been produced in rats, but previous attempts to grow human organs in pigs have not succeeded,” said the senior author Liangxue Lai. “Our approach improves the integration of human cells into recipient tissues and allows us to grow human organs in pigs.” The kidneys were not entirely human as they included vasculature and nerves made mostly from pig cells, meaning they could not be used for transplantation in their current form, but it is still a pretty impressive step. And apart from the kidneys, the embryos were dominated by pig cells, with very few human cells in the brain or central nervous system. Making brains using human and pig cells is very controversial for ethical reasons, so there are tight regulations for this kind of research. Meanwhile, pig cells tend to outcompete human cells during development, so previous experiments have created embryos that are almost entirely pig. The latest work, published in Cell Stem Cell, overcame this by genetically engineering a single-cell pig embryo so that it lacked two genes needed for kidney development. This created a gap within the embryo that could be filled by human cells. “We found that if you create a niche in the pig embryo, then the human cells naturally go into these spaces,” said Prof Zhen Dai of Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, another senior author. The scientists said that being able to incubate a fully human kidney inside a pig would be likely to take many years. “We would probably need to engineer the pigs in a much more complex way and that also brings some additional challenges,” said Miguel Esteban, also of the Guangzhou institute and a senior author. A central challenge would be to allow human nerves and vasculature to develop within the target organ without nerve cells developing in the central nervous system that could lead to a humanised brain. “Even theoretically it’s not clear how you’d do that,” said Ilic. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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The environmental activist group Greenpeace has suggested that the next deadly heatwave to hit the planet should be named after an oil CEO after one person dies in the extreme heat. The heatwave, or area of high pressure is named Cerberus, after the three-headed dog that guarded the gates of the underworld in Dante's Inferno and Greek mythology. Temperatures have soared to a dangerously high 60C in Spain, according to satellite recordings, which on heat maps have turned red areas black. Highs of 40c were also experienced in France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy on Wednesday, the latter of which saw a 44-year-old worker die after collapsing while painting a zebra crossing just outside of Milan in the midday heat. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter As the heat rises to unprecedented levels, Greenpeace had its unique take on the matter. On Twitter, the organisation wrote: "The extreme heatwave sweeping Southern Europe has been named HEATWAVE CERBERUS - in reference to the dog that guards the underworld in Greek mythology. Can we name the next heatwave after an Oil CEO please instead?" They then added an illustration of the mythological monster, by artist Luciano Komorizono with three major oil companies (BP, Shell and Exxon Mobil) attached to each of the dog's heads. Greenpeace also attached a petition to the tweet calling for an end to the fossil fuel industry and their role in the climate crisis. The heatwave is expected to remain in the Mediterranean for the next two weeks. Heatwaves only started to be named in August 2022, with 'Zoe' hitting Seville, Spain with temperatures of over 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Only the highest tier of heatwaves, category C, have received names so far. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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