Human cells grown in monkey embryos spark ethical debate

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightWeizhi Ji/Kunming Univ of Science and Technology

Monkey embryos containing human cells have been made in a laboratory, a study has confirmed.

The research, by a US-Chinese team, has sparked fresh debate into the ethics of such experiments.

The scientists injected human stem cells – cells that have the ability to develop into many different body tissues – into macaque embryos.

The developing embryos were studied for up to 20 days.

Other so-called mixed-species embryos, or chimeras, have been produced